^ngli0()  iiXtn  oi  Ccttcr 

EDITED  BY  JOHX  MORLEY 


K 


^ 


tertnte: 


BY 


11.    D.    TEAILL 


NEW    YORK 

nAHPER  &  BEOTHERS,  PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN     SQUARE 


1882 
^1    ""ll^l 


ENGLISH   MEN  OF  LETTERS. 

Edited  by  John  Morley. 


Johnson Leslie  Stephen. 

Gibbon J.  C.  Morison. 

Scott :R.  H.  Hutton. 

Shelley J.  A.  Symonds. 

Hume T.  H.  Huxley. 

Goldsmith William  Black. 

Defoe William  Minto. 

Burns J.  C.  Shairp. 

Spenser R.  W.  Church. 

Thackeray Anthony  Trollope. 

Burke John  Morley. 

Milton Mark  Pattison. 

Hawthorne Henry  James,  Jr. 

Southey E.  Dowden. 

Chaucer A.  W.  Ward. 


Bunyan J.  A.  Froude. 

Cowper Goldvvin  Smith. 

Pope Leslie  Stephen. 

Byron John  NichoL 

LocKE Thomas  Fowler. 

Wordsworth F.  Myers. 

Dryden G.  Saintsbury. 

Landor Sidney  Colvin. 

De  Quincey David  Masson. 

Lamb Alfred  Ainger. 

Bentley R.  C.  Jebb. 

Dickens A.  W.  Ward. 

Gray E.  W.'  Gosse. 

Swift Leslie  Stephen. 

Sterne H.  D.  Traill. 


i2mo,  Cloth,  75  cents  per  volume. 

Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

BS^  Any  of  the  above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  fostage  prepaid,  to  any  pari 
of  the  United  States,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


PEEFATOEY  KOTE. 

The  materials  for  a  biograpby  of  Sterne  are  by  no  means 
abundant.  Of  tbe  earlier  years  of  his  life  the  only  exist- 
ing record  is  that  preserved  in  the  brief  autobiographical 
memoir  which,  a  few  months  before  his  death,  he  com- 
posed, in  the  usual  quaint  staccato  style  of  his  familiar  cor- 
respondence, for  the  benefit  of  his  daughter.  Of  his  child- 
hood ;  of  his  school-days ;  of  his  life  at  Cambridge,  and  in 
his  Yorkshire  vicarage  ;  of  his  whole  history,  in  fact,  up  to 
the  age  of  forty-six,  we  know  nothing  more  than  he  has 
there  jotted  down.  lie  attained  that  age  in  the  year  1759  ; 
and  at  this  date  begins  that  series  of  his  Letters,  from 
which,  for  those  who  have  the  patience  to  sort  them  out 
of  the  chronological  confusion  in  which  his  daughter  and 
editress  involved  them,  there  is,  no  doubt,  a  good  deal  to 
be  learnt.  These  letters,  however,  which  extend  down  to 
1768,  the  year  of  the  writer's  death,  contain  pretty  nearly 
all  the  contemporary  material  that  we  have  to  depend  on. 
Freely  as  Sterne  mixed  in  the  best  literary  society,  there  is 
singularly  little  to  be  gathered  about  him,  even  in  the  way 
of  chance  allusion  and  anecdote,  from  the  memoirs  and  ana 
of  his  time.  Of  the  many  friends  who  would  have  been 
competent  to  write  his  biography  while  the  facts  were  yet 
fresh,  but  one,  John  'Wilkes,  ever  entertained — if  he  did 
seriously  entertain  —  the  idea  of  performing  this  pious 
work;  and  he,  in  spite  of  the  entreaties  of  Sterne's  widow 


yi  TREFATOllY  NOTE. 

and  dauglitcr,  tlicii  in  straitened  circumstances,  left  unre- 
deemed bis  promise  to  do  so.  The  brief  memoir  by  Sir 
AValter  Scott,  wLicli  is  prefixed  to  many  popular  editions 
of  Tristram  Shandy  and  the  Sentimental  Journey,  sets  out 
the  so-called  autobiography  in  fall,  but  for  the  rest  is  main- 
ly critical ;  Thackeray's  well-known  lecture-essay  is  almost 
wholly  so ;  and  nothing,  worthy  to  be  dignified  by  the 
name  of  a  Life  of  Sterne,  seems  ever  to  have  been  pub- 
lished, until  tlie  appearance  of  Mr.  Percy  Fitzgerald's  two 
stout  volumes,  under  this  title,  some  eighteen  years  ago. 
Of  this  work  it  is  hardly  too  mucli  to  say  that  it  contains 
(no  doubt  witli  the  admixture  of  a  good  deal  of  superflu- 
ous matter)  nearly  all  the  information  as  to  the  facts  of 
Sterne's  life  that  is  now  ever  likely  to  be  recovered.  The 
evidence  for  certain  of  its  statements  of  fact  is  not  as  thor- 
oughly sifted  as  it  might  have  been ;  and  with  some  of  its 
criticism  I,  at  least,  am  unable  to  agree.  But  no  one  inter- 
ested in  the  subject  of  this  memoir  can  be  insensible  of  his 
obligations  to  Mr.  Fitzgerald  for  the  fruitful  diligence  with 
which  he  has  laboured  in  a  too  long  neglected  field. 

n.  D.  T. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

(1713-1724.)  r^vGE 

BiKTH,  Pakextage,  a^'d  Eat.ly  Yeaes 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

(1T24-1733.) 

School  ^vxd  Uxi^'ersitt.— Halifax  axd  CAiLBEiDGE    .    11 
CHAPTER  III. 

(1T3S-1759.) 

Life  at  Sutton. — ^Marriage. — The  Parish  Priest     .    20 
CHAPTER  IV. 

^  (1759-1760.) 

\/  '"Tristram  SiLiLN'DY,'"  Vols.  I.  azvd  II 33 

CHAPTER  V. 

(17C0-1762.)  •- 

LoN'DON  Trieuths. — FiRST  Set  OF  Sermons. — "Tris- 
tram! Shaxdy,"  Vols.  III.  axd  IV.  —  Coxwold. — 
/'  Tristram  Sh^ixdy,"  Vols.  V.  axd  ^T:.— First  Visit 
TO  THE  CoNTESTi^sT.— Paris.— Toulouse 40 


vUi  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

(17C2-1TG5.) 

Life  in  the  South. — Return  to  England. — *  Tris- 
tram Shandy,"  Vols.  VII.  and  VIII. —  Second  Set 
OF  Sermons 75 


/PAGE 
1 


I 


CHAPTER  VII. 

(1TG5-1TCS.) 

France  and  Italy. — Meeting  with  Wife  and  Daugh- 
ter.— Return  to  England. — 'Vtristram  Sil\ndy/' 
Vol.  IX. — "The  Sentimental  Journey"    ....  103 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

(ITGS.) 

Last  Days  and  Death 117 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Sterne  as  a  Writer. — The  Charge  of  Plagiarism. 
— Dr.  Ferriar's  "Illustrations" 126 


CHAPTER  X. 

Style  and  General  Characteristics.— Humour  and 
Sentevient 139 


CHAPTER  XL 

Creatr^e  and  Dramatic  Power. — Place  in  English 
Literature 164 


STERNE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

BIRTH,   PARENTAGE,   AXD    EARLY    TEARS. 

(1713-1724.) 

Towards  the  close  of  the  month  of  Xovember,  1713,  one 
of  the  last  of  the  English  regiments  which  had  been  de- 
tained in  Flanders  to  supervise  the  execution  of  the  treaty 
of  Utrecht  arrived  at  Clonrael  from  Dunkirk.  The  day 
after  its  arrival  the  regiment  was  disbanded;  and  yet  a 
few  days  later,  on  the  24th  of  the  month,  the  wife  of  one 
of  its  subalterns  gave  birth  to  a  son.  The  child  who  thus 
early  displayed  the  perversity  of  his  humour  by  so  inop- 
portune an  appearance  was  Laurence  Sterxe.  "My 
birthday,"  he  says,  in  the  slipshod,  loosely-strung  notes  by 
which  he  has  been  somewhat  grandiloquently  said  to  have 
"  anticipated  the  labours  "  of  the  biographer — "  my  birth- 
day was  ominous  to  my  poor  father,  who  was  the  day  after 
our  arrival,  with  many  other  brave  ofiBcers,  broke  and  sent 
adrift  into  the  wide  world  with  a  wife  and  two  children." 
Roger  Sterne,  however,  now  late  ensign  of  the  34th,  or 
Chudleigh's  regiment  of  foot,  w^as  after  all  in  less  evil  case 
than  were  many,  probably,  of  his  comrades.  He  had  kins- 
1* 


2  STERNE.  [chap. 

men  to  wliom  he  could  look  for,  at  any  rate,  temporary 
assistance,  and  Lis  mother  was  a  wealthy  widow.  The 
Sternes,  originally  of  a  Suffolk  stock,  had  passed  from  that 
county  to  Nottinghamshire,  and  thence  into  Yorkshire,  and 
were  at  this  time  a  family  of  position  and  substance  in  the 
last-named  county.  Roger's  grandfather  had  been  Arch- 
bishop of  York,  and  a  man  of  more  note,  if  only  through 
the  accident  of  the  times  upon  which  he  fell,  than  most  of 
the  incumbents  of  that  see.  He  had  played  an  exception- 
ally energetic  part  even  for  a  Cavalier  prelate  in  the  great 
political  struggle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  had  suf- 
fered with  fortitude  and  dignity  in  the  royal  cause.  He 
had,  moreover,  a  further  claim  to  distinction  in  having  been 
treated  with  common  gratitude  at  the  Restoration  by  the 
son  of  the  monarch  whom  he  had  served.  As  Master  of 
Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  he  had  "  been  active  in  sending 
the  University  plate  to  his  Majesty,"  and  for  this  offence 
he  was  seized  by  Cromwell  and  carried  in  military  custody 
to  London,  whence,  after  undergoing  imprisonment  in  va- 
rious gaols,  and  experiencing  other  forms  of  hardship,  he 
was  at  length  permitted  to  retire  to  an  obscure  retreat  in 
the  country,  there  to  commune  with  himself  until  that 
tyranny  should  be  overpast.  On  the  return  of  the  exiled 
Stuarts  Dr.  Sterne  was  made  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  and  a  few 
years  later  was  translated  to  the  see  of  York.  He  lived 
to  the  age  of  eighty-six,  and  so  far  justified  Burnet's  accu- 
sation against  him  of  "  minding  chiefly  enriching  himself," 
that  he  seems  to  have  divided  no  fewer  than  four  landed 
estates  among  his  children.  One  of  these,  Simon  Sterne, 
a  younger  son  of  the  Archbishop,  himself  married  an  heir- 
ess, the  daughter  of  Sir  Roger  Jaques  of  Elvington;  and 
Roger,  the  father  of  Laurence  Sterne,  was  the  seventh  and 
youngest  of  the  issue  of  this  marriage.     At  the  time  when' 


1.]  BIRTH,  PARENTAGE,  AXD  EARLY  YEARS.  3 

the  double  misfortune  above  recorded  befell  liim  at  the 
hands  of  Lucina  and  the  War  Office,  his  father  had  been 
some  years  dead ;  but  Simon  Sterne's  widow  was  still  mis- 
tress of  the  property  which  she  had  brought  with  her  at 
her  marriage,  and  to  Elvington,  accordingly,  "as  soon," 
writes  Sterne,  "  as  I  was  able  to  be  carried,"  the  compul- 
sorily  retired  ensign  betook  himself  with  his  wife  and  his 
two  children.     He  was  not,  however,  compelled  to  remain 
long  dependent  on  his  mother.     The  ways  of  the  military 
authorities  were  as  inscrutable  to  the  army  of  that  day  as 
they  are  in  our  day  to  our  own.     Before  a  year  had  passed 
the  regiment  was  ordered  to  be  re-established,  and  "  our 
household  decamped  with  bag  and  baggage  for  Dublin." 
This  was  in  the  autumn  of  1714,  and  from  that  time  on- 
ward, for  some  eleven  years,  the  movements  and  fortunes 
of  the  Sterne  family,  as  detailed  in  the  narrative  of  its 
most  famous  member,  form  a  history  in  which  the  ludi- 
crous struggles  strangely  with  the  pathetic. 

A  husband,  condemned  to  be  the  Ulysses-like  plaything 
of  adverse  gods  at  the  War  Office ;  an  indefatigably  pro- 
lific wife ;  a  succession  of  weak  and  ailing  children  ;  mis- 
fortune in  the  seasons  of  journeying ;  misfortune  in  the 
moods  of  the  weather  by  sea  and  land  — under  all  this 
combination  of  hostile  chances  and  conditions  was  the 
struggle  to  be  carried  on.  The  little  household  was  per- 
petually "on  the  move"— a  little  household  which  was 
always  becoming  and  never  remaining  bigger — continual- 
ly increased  by  births,  only  to  be  again  reduced  by  deaths 
— until  the  contest  between  the  deadly  hardships  of  trav- 
el and  the  fatal  fecundity  of  Mrs.  Sterne  was  brought  by 
events  to  a  natural  close.  Almost  might  the  unfortunate 
lady  have  exclaimed,  Quce  regio  in  terris  nostrl  non  i:>lena 
Moris  ?     She  passes  from  Ireland  to  England,  and  from 


4  STERXE.  [chap. 

England  to  Ireland,  from  inland  garrison  to  sea-port  town 
and  back  again,  incessantly  bearing  and  incessantly  bury- 
ing children — until  even  her  son  in  his  narrative  begins  to 
speak  of  losing  one  infant  at  this  place,  and  "  leaving  an- 
other behind"  on  that  journey,  almost  as  if  they  were  so 
many  overlooked  or  misdirected  articles  of  luggage.  The 
tragic  side  of  the  history,  however,  overshadows  the  gro- 
tesque. When  we  think  how  hard  a  business  was  travel 
even  under  the  most  favourable  conditions  in  those  days, 
and  how  serious  even  in  our  own  times,  when  travel  is 
easy,  are  the  discomforts  of  the  women  and  children  of  a 
regiment  on  the  march — we  may  w^ell  pity  these  unrest- 
ing followers  of  the  drum.  As  to  Mrs.  Sterne  herself,  she 
seems  to  have  been  a  woman  of  a  pretty  tough  fibre,  and 
she  came  moreover  of  a  campaigning  stock.  Her  father 
was  a  "  noted  suttler  "  of  the  name  of  Nuttle,  and  her  first 
husband — for  she  was  a  widow  when  Roo;er  Sterne  married 
her — had  been  a  soldier  also.  She  had,  therefore,  served 
some  years'  apprenticeship  to  the  military  life  before  these 
wanderings  began ;  and  she  herself  was  destined  to  live 
to  a  good  old  age.  But  somehow  or  other  she  failed  to 
endow  her  offspring  with  her  own  robust  constitution  and 
powers  of  endurance.  "  My  father's  children  were,"  as 
Laurence  Sterne  grimly  puts  it,  "not  made  to  last  long;" 
but  one  cannot  help  suspecting  that  it  was  the  hardships 
of  those  early  years  which  carried  them  off  in  their  infan- 
cy with  such  painful  regularity  and  despatch,  and  that  it 
was  to  the  same  cause  that  their  surviving  brother  owed 
the  beginnings  of  that  fatal  malady  by  which  his  own  life 
was  cut  short. 

The  diary  of  their  travels — for  the  early  part  of  Sterne's 
memoirs  amounts  to  scarcely  more — is  the  more  effective 
for  its  very  brevity  and  abruptness.     Save  for  one  interval 


I.]  Bimn,  PAPvEXTAGE,  AXD  EARLY  YEARS.  5 

of  somewliat  longer  sojourn  than  usual  at  Dublin,  the  read- 
er lias  tlirougliout  it  all  the  feeling  of  the  traveller  who 
never  finds  time  to  unpack  his  portmanteau.  On  the  re- 
enrolment  of  the  regiment  in  1714,  "our  household,"  says 
the  narrative,  "  decamped  from  York  with  bag  and  bag- 
gage for  Dublin.  "Within  a  month  my  father  left  us,  be- 
ing ordered  to  Exeter;  where,  in  a  sad  winter,  my  mother 
and  her  two  children  followed  him,  travelling  from  Liver- 
pool, by  land,  to  Plymouth."  At  Plymouth  Mrs.  Sterne 
gave  birth  to  a  son,  christened  Joram ;  and,  "in  twelve 
months'  time  wc  were  all  sent  back  to  Dublin.  My  moth- 
er," with  her  three  children,  "  took  ship  at  Bristol  for  Ire- 
land, and  had  a  narrow  escape  from  being  cast  away  by  a 
leak  springing  up  in  the  vessel.  At  length,  after  many 
perils  and  straggles,  we  got  to  Dublin."  Here  intervenes 
the  short  breathing-space,  of  which  mention  has  been  made 
— an  interval  employed  by  Roger  Sterne  in  "  spending  a 
great  deal  of  money"  on  a  "large  house,"  which  he  hired 
and  furnished ;  and  then  "  in  the  year  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  nineteen,  all  unhinged  again."  The  regiment 
had  been  ordered  o2  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  thence  to  era- 
bark  for  Spain,  on  "  the  Yigo  Expedition,"  and  "we,"  who 
accompanied  it,  "  were  driven  into  ]\IiIford  Haven,  but  af- 
terwards landed  at  Bristol,  and  thence  by  land  to  Plymouth 
again,  and  to  the  Isle  of  Wight ;"  losing  on  this  expedi- 
tion "  poor  Joram,  a  pretty  boy,  who  died  of  the  small- 
pox." In  the  Isle  of  Wight,  Mrs.  Sterne  and  her  family 
remained  till  the  Yigo  Expedition  returned  home ;  and 
during  her  stay  there  "  poor  Joram's  loss  was  supplied  by 
the  birth  of  a  girl,  Anne,"  a  "  pretty  blossom,"  but  destined 
to  fall  "  at  the  age  of  three  years."  On  the  return  of  the 
regiment  to  Wicklow,  Pioo-er  Sterne  again  sent  to  collect 
his  family  around  him.     "  We  embarked  for  Dublin,  and 


6  STERNE.  [cHAf. 

had  all  been  cast  away  by  a  most  violent  storm ;  but, 
tlirougli  the  intercession  of  my  mother,  the  captain  was 
prevailed  upon  to  turn  bach  into  Wales,  where  we  stayed 
a  month,  and  at  length  got  into  Dublin,  and  travelled  by 
land  to  Wicklow,  where  my  father  had,  for  some  weeks, 
given  us  over  for  lost."  Here  a  year  passed,  and  another 
child,  Devijeher — so  called  after  the  colonel  of  the  regi- 
ment— was  born.  "  From  thence  we  decamped  to  stay 
half  a  year  with  Mr.  Fetherston,  a  clergyman,  about  seven 
miles  from  Wicklow,  who,  being  a  relative  of  my  mother's, 
invited  us  to  his  parsonage  at  Animo.^  From  thence, 
again,  "  we  followed  the  regiment  to  Dublin,"  where  again 
"we  lay  in  the  barracks  a  year."  In  1722  the  regiment 
was  ordered  to  Carrickfergus.  "  We  all  decamped,  but 
got  no  further  than  Drogheda ;  thence  ordered  to  Mullin- 
gar,  forty  miles  west,  where,  by  Providence,  we  stumbled 
upon  a  kind  relation,  a  collateral  descendant  from  Arch- 
bishop Sterne,  who  took  us  all  to  his  castle,  and  kindly  en- 
tertained us  for  a  year."  Thence,  by  "  a  most  rueful  jour- 
ney," to  Carrickfergus,  where  "  we  arrived  in  six  or  seven 

^  "It  was  in  this  parish,"  says  Sterne,  "that  I  had  that  wonderful 
escape  in  falling  through  a  mill  race  while  the  mill  was  going,  and 
being  taken  up  unhurt ;  the  story  is  incredible,  but  known  to  all  that 
part  of  Ireland,  where  hundreds  of  the  common  people  flocked  to  see 
me."  More  incredible  still  does  it  seem  that  Thoresby  should  relate 
the  occurrence  of  an  accident  of  precisely  the  same  kind  to  Sterne's 
great-grandfather,  the  Archbishop.  "  Playing  near  a  mill,  he  fell  with- 
in a  claw ;  there  was  but  one  board  or  bucket  wanting  in  the  whole 
wheel,  but  a  gracious  Providence  so  ordered  it  that  the  void  place 
came  down  at  that  moment,  else  he  had  been  crushed  to  death;  but 
was  reserved  to  be  a  grand  benefactor  afterwards."  (Thoresby,  ii.  15.) 
But  what  will  probably  strike  the  reader  as  more  extraordinary  even 
than  this  coincidence  is  that  Sterne  should  have  been  either  unaware 
of  it,  or  should  have  omitted  mention  of  it  in  the  above  passage. 


I.]  BIRTH,  PARENTAGE,  AND  EARLY  YEARS.  7 

days."  Here,  at  the  age  of  tliree,  little  Devijelier  obtained 
a  liappy  release  from  his  name ;  and  "  another  child,  Su- 
san, was  sent  to  fill  his  place,  who  also  left  us  behind  in 
this  weary  journey."  In  the  "  autumn  of  this  year,  or  the 
spring  of  the  next" — Sterne's  memory  failing  in  exacti- 
tude at  the  very  point  where  we  should  have  expected  it 
to  be  most  precise — "  my  father  obtained  permission  of 
his  colonel  to  fix  me  at  school ;"  and  henceforth  the  boy's 
share  in  the  family  wanderings  was  at  an  end.  But  his 
father  had  yet  to  be  ordered  from  Carrickfergus  to  Lon- 
donderry, where  at  last  a  permanent  child,  Catherine,  was 
born  ;  and  thence  to  Gibraltar,  to  take  part  in  the  Defence 
of  that  famous  Rock,  where  the  much-enduring  campaigner 
was  run  through  the  body  in  a  duel,  "about  a  goose"  (a 
thoroughly  Shandian  catastrophe) ;  and  thence  to  Jamaica, 
where,  "with  a  constitution  impaired"  by  the  sword-thrust 
earned  in  his  anserine  quarrel,  he  was  defeated  in  a  more 
deadly  duel  with  the  "country  fever,"  and  died.  "His 
malady,"  writes  his  son,  with  a  touch  of  feeling  struggling 
through  his  dislocated  grammar,  "  took  away  his  senses 
first,  and  made  a  child  of  him ;  and  then  in  a  month  or 
two  walking  about  continually  without  complaining,  till 
the  moment  he  sat  down  in  an  arm-chair  and  breathed  his 
last." 

There  is,  as  has  been  observed,  a  certain  mixture  of  the 
comic  and  the  pathetic  in  the  life-history  of  this  obscure 
father  of  a  famous  son.  His  life  was  clearly  not  a  fortu- 
nate one,  so  far  as  external  circumstances  go ;  but  its  mis- 
fortunes had  no  sort  of  consoling  dignity  about  them. 
Roger  Sterne's  lot  in  the  world  was  not  so  much  an  un- 
happy as  an  uncomfortable  one ;  and  discomfort  earns  lit- 
tle sympathy,  and  absolutely  no  admiration,  for  its  sufEer- 
ers.     He  somehow  reminds  us  of  one  of  those  Irish  heroes 


8  STERXE.  [chap. 

— good-natured,  peppery,  debt-loaded,  liglit-liearted,  shift- 
less—  wliosc  fortunes  wo  follow  with  mirthful  and  half- 
contemptuous  sjmipathy  in  the  pages  of  Thackeray.  He 
was  obviously  a  typical  specimen  of  that  class  of  men  who 
are  destitute  alike  of  the  virtues  and  failings  of  the  "  re- 
spectable "  and  successful ;  whom  many  people  love  and 
no  one  respects ;  whom  everybody  pities  in  their  struggles 
and  difficulties,  but  whom  few  pity  without  a  smile. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  he  succeeded  in  winning  the 
affection  of  one  who  had  not  too  much  affection  of  the 
deeper  kind  to  spare  for  any  one.  The  figure  of  Roger 
Sterne  alone  stands  out  with  any  clearness  by  the  side  of 
the  ceaselessly  flitting  mother  and  phantasmal  children  of 
Laurence  Sterne's  Memoir;  and  it  is  touched  in  with  strokes 
so  vivid  and  characteristic  that  critics  have  been  tempted 
to  find  in  it  the  original  of  the  most  famous  portrait  in 
the  Shandy  gallery.  "  My  father,"  says  Sterne,  "  was  a 
little,  smart  man,  active  to  the  last  degree  in  all  exercises, 
most  patient  of  fatigue  and  disappointments,  of  which  it 
pleased  God  to  give  him  full  measure.  He  was,  in  his 
temper,  somewhat  rapid  and  hasty,  but  of  a  kindly,  sweet 
disposition,  void  of  all  design,  and  so  innocent  in  his  own 
intentions,  that  he  suspected  no  one ;  so  that  you  might 
have  cheated  him  ten  times  a  day,  if  nine  had  not  been 
sufficient  for  your  purpose."  This  is  a  captivating  little 
picture ;  and  it  no  doubt  presents  traits  which  may  have 
impressed  themselves  early  and  deeply  on  the  imagination 
which  was  afterwards  to  give  birth  to  "  My  Uncle  Toby." 
The  simplicity  of  nature  and  the  "  kindly,  sweet  disposi- 
tion" are  common  to  both  the  ensign  of  real  life  and  to 
the  immortal  Captain  Shandy  of  fiction ;  but  the  criticism 
which  professes  to  find  traces  of  Roger  Sterne's  "  rapid  and 
hasty  temper"  in  my  Uncle  Toby  is  compelled  to  strain 


I.]  BIRTH,  PARENTAGE,  AND  EARLY  YEARS.  9 

itself  considerably.  And,  on  the  whole,  there  seems  no 
reason  to  believe  that  Sterne  borrowed  more  from  the 
character  of  his  father  than  any  writer  must  necessarily, 
and  perhaps  imconsciously,  borrow  from  his  observation 
of  the  moral  and  mental  qualities  of  those  with  whom  he 
has  come  into  most  frequent  contact. 

That  Laurence  Sterne  passed  the  first  eleven  years  of 
his  life  with  such  an  exemplar  of  these  simple  virtues  of 
kindliness,  guilelessness,  and  courage  ever  before  him,  is 
perhaps  the  best  that  can  be  said  for  the  lot  in  which  his 
early  days  were  cast.  In  almost  all  other  respects  there 
could  hardly  have  been — for  a  quick-witted,  precocious, 
imitative  boy  —  a  worse  bringing-up.  No  one,  I  should  \/ 
imagine,  ever  more  needed  discipline  in  his  youth  than 
Sterne ;  and  the  camp  is  a  place  of  discipline  for  the  sol- 
dier only.  To  all  others  whom  necessity  attaches  to  it, 
and  to  the  young  especially,  it  is  rather  a  school  of  license 
and  irregularity.  It  is  fair  to  remember  these  disadvan- 
tages of  Sterne's  early  training,  in  judging  of  the  many 
defects  as  a  man,  and  laxities  as  a  writer,  which  marked  his 
later  life ;  though,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  denying 
the  reality  and  value  of  some  of  the  countervailing  advan- 
tages which  came  to  him  from  his  boyish  surroundings. 
The  conception  of  my  Uncle  Toby  need  not  have  been 
taken  whole  from  Roger  Sterne,  or  from  any  one  actual 
captain  of  a  marching  regiment ;  but  the  constant  sight 
of,  and  converse  with,  many  captains  and  man}^  corporals 
may  undoubtedly  have  contributed  much  to  the  vigour  and 
vitality  of  Toby  Shandy  and  Corporal  Trim.  So  far  as 
the  externals  of  portraiture  were  concerned,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  his  art  benefited  much  from  his  early  mili- 
tary life.  His  soldiers  have  the  true  stamp  of  the  soldier 
about  them  in  air  and  language  ;  and  when  his  captain  and 


10  STERNE.  [cuAP.  i. 

corporal  fight  their  Flemish  battles  over  again  we  arc  thor- 
oughly conscious  that  we  are  listening,  under  the  dramatic 
form,  to  one  who  must  himself  have  heard  many  a  chapter 
of  the  same  splendid  story  from  the  lips  of  the  very  men 
who  had  helped  to  break  the  pride  of  the  Grand  Monarquc 
under  Marlborough  and  Eugene. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SCHOOL   AND   UNIVERSITY. HALIFAX   AXD    CAMBRIDGE. 

(1723-1738.) 

It  was  not — as  we  have  seen  from  the  Memoir — till  the 
autumn  of  1723,  "or  the  spring  of  the  following  year," 
that  Roger  Sterne  obtained  leave  of  his  colonel  to  "  fix  " 
his  son  at  school ;  and  this  would  bring  Laurence  to  the 
tolerably  adv^anced  age  of  ten  before  beginning  his  edu- 
cation in  any  systematic  way.  He  records,  under  date  of 
1721,  that  "in  this  year  I  learned  to  write,  &c. ;"  but  it 
is  not  probable  that  the  "  &c." — that  indolent  symbol  of 
which  Sterne  makes  such  irritating  use  in  all  his  familiar 
■writing — covers,  in  this  case,  any  wide  extent  of  educa- 
tional advance.  The  boy,  most  likely,  could  jnst  read  and 
write,  and  no  more,  at  the  time  ^vhen  he  was  fixed  at 
school,  "near  Halifax,  with  an  able  master:"  a  judicious 
selection,  no  doubt,  both  of  place  as  well  as  teacher.  Mr. 
Fitzgerald,  to  whose  researches  w^e  owe  as  much  light  as 
is  ever  likely  to  be  thrown  upon  this  obscure  and  proba- 
bly not  very  interesting  period  of  Sterne's  life,  has  point- 
ed out  that  Richard  Sterne,  eldest  son  of  the  late  Simon 
Sterne,  and  uncle,  therefore,  of  Laurence,  was  one  of  the 
governors  of  Halifax  Grammar  School,  and  that  he  may 
have  used  his  interest  to  obtain  his  nephew's  admission  to 
the  foundation  as  the  grandson  of  a  Halifax  man,  and  so, 
constructively,  a  child  of  the  parish.     But,  be  this  as  it 


12  STERXE.  [chap. 

may,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  from  the  time  when 
he  was  sent  to  Halifax  vSchooI  the  whole  care  and  cost  of 
the  boy's  education  was  borne  by  his  Yorkshire  relatives. 
The  Memoir  says  that,  "  by  God's  care  of  me,  my  cousin 
Sterne,  of  Elvington,  became  a  father  to  me,  and  sent  me 
to  the  University,  &c.,  &c. ;"  and  it  is  to  be  inferred  from 
this  that  the  benevolent  guardianship  of  Sterne's  uncle 
Richard  (who  died  in  1732,  the  year  before  Laurence  was 
admitted  of  Jesus  College,  Cambridge)  must  have  been 
taken  up  by  his  son.  Of  his  school  course  —  though  it 
lasted  for  over  seven  years — the  autobiographer  has  little 
to  say  ;  nothing,  indeed,  except  that  he  "  cannot  omit  men- 
tioning" that  anecdote  with  which  everybody,  I  suppose, 
who  has  ever  come  across  the  briefest  notice  of  Sterne's 
life  is  familiar.  The  schoolmaster  "  had  the  ceiling  of 
the  schoolroom  new-whitewashed,  and  the  ladder  remain- 
ed there.  I,  one  unlucky  day,  mounted  it,  and  wrote  with 
a  brush,  in  large  capital  letters,  LAU.  STERNE,  for  which 
the  usher  severely  whipped  me.  My  master  Avas  very 
much  hurt  at  this,  and  said  before  me  that  never  should 
that  name  be  effaced,  for  I  was  a  boy  of  genius,  and  he 
was  sure  I  should  come  to  preferment.  This  expression 
made  me  forget  the  blows  I  had  received."  It  is  hardly 
to  be  supposed,  of  course,  that  this  story  is  pure  romance ; 
but  it  is  difficult,  on  the  other  hand,  to  believe  that  the  in- 
cident has  been  related  by  Sterne  exactly  as  it  happened. 
That  the  recorded  prediction  may  have  been  made  in  jest' 
— or  even  in  earnest  (for  penetrating  teachers  have  these 
prophetic  moments  sometimes)  —  is,  of  course,  possible ; 
but  that  Sterne's  master  was  "very  much  hurt"  at  the 
boy's  having  been  justly  punished  for  an  act  of  wanton 
mischief,  or  that  he  recognized  it  as  the  natural  privilege 
of  nascent  genius  to  deface  newly -whitewashed  ceilings. 


n.]  HALIFAX  AXD  CAMBRIDGE.  13 

must  have  been  a  delusion  of  the  humourist's  hitcr  years. 
The  extreme  fatuity  A^'hich  it  would  compel  us  to  attribute 
to  the  schoolmaster  seems  inconsistent  with  the  power  of 
detecting  intellectual  capacity  in  any  one  else.  On  the 
whole,  one  inclines  to  suspect  that  the  remark  belonged  to 
that  order  of  half  sardonic,  half  kindly  jest  which  a  certain 
sort  of  pedagogue  sometimes  throws  off,  for  the  consola- 
tion of  a  recently-caned  boy ;  and  that  Sterne's  vanity, 
cither  then  or  afterwards  (for  it  remained  juvenile  all  his 
life),  translated  it  into  a  serious  prophecy.  In  itself,  how- 
ever, the  urchin's  freak  was  only  too  unhappily  character- 
istic of  the  man.  The  trick  of  befouling  what  was  clean 
(and  because  it  was  clean)  clung  to  him  most  tenaciously 
all  his  days  ;  and  many  a  fair  white  surface — of  humour, 
of  fancy,  or  of  sentiment — was  to  be  disfigured  by  him 
in  after-years  with  stains  and  splotches  in  which  we  can 
all  too  plainly  decipher  the  literary  signature  of  Laurence 
Sterne. 

At  Halifax  School  the  boy,  as  has  been  said,  remained 
for  about  eight  years ;  that  is,  until  he  was  nearly  nineteen, 
and  for  some  months  after  his  father's  death  at  Port  An- 
tonio, which  occurred  in  March,  1731.  "In  the  year  '32," 
says  the  Memoir,  "  my  cousin  sent  me  to  the  University, 
where  I  stayed  some  time."  In  the  course  of  his  first  year 
he  read  for  and  obtained  a  sizarship,  to  which  the  college 
records  show  that  he  was  duly  admitted  on  the  6th  of  July, 
1733.  The  selection  of  Jesus  College  was  a  natural  one: 
Sterne's  great-grandfather,  the  afterwards  Archbishop,  had 
been  its  Master,  and  had  founded  scholarships  there,  to  one 
of  which  the  young  sizar  was,  a  year  after  his  admission, 
elected.  Xo  inference  can,  of  course,  be  drawn  from  this 
as  to  Sterne's  proficiency,  or  even  industry,  in  his  academ- 
ical studies :  it  is  scarcely  more  than  a  testimony  to  the 


14  STERNE.  [chap. 

fact  of  decent  and  regular  behaviour.  He  was  bene  natus, 
in  the  sense  of  being-  related  to  the  right  man,  the  founder ; 
and  in  those  days  he  need  be  only  very  niodlce  doctus  in- 
deed in  order  to  qualify  himself  for  admission  to  the  en- 
joyment of  his  kinsman's  benefactions.  Still  he  must  have 
been  orderly  and  well-conducted  in  his  ways ;  and  this  he 
would  also  seem  to  have  been,  from  the  fact  of  his  having 
passed  through  his  University  course  without  any  apparent 
break  or  hitch,  and  having  been  admitted  to  his  Bachelor's 
degree  after  no  more  than  the  normal  period  of  residence. 
The  only  remark  which,  in  the  Memoir,  he  vouchsafes  to 
bestow  upon  his  academical  career  is,  that  "  'twas  there 

that  I  commenced  a  friendship  with  Mr.  H ,  which  has 

been  lasting  on  both  sides ;"  and  it  may,  perhaps,  be  said 
that  this  loas,  from  one  point  of  view,  the  most  important 

event  of  his  Cambridge  life.     For  Mr.  II was  John 

Hall,  afterwards  John  Hall  Stevenson,  the  "  Eugenius  "  of 
Tristram  Shand}/,  the  master  of  Skelton  Castle,  at  which 
Sterne  was,  throughout  life,  to  be  a  frequent  and  most 
familiar  visitor ;  and,  unfortunately,  also  a  person  whose 
later  reputation,  both  as  a  man  and  a  writer,  became  sucli 
as  seriously  to  compromise  the  not  very  robust  respectabil- 
ity of  his  clerical  comrade.  Sterne  and  Hall  were  distant 
cousins,  and  it  may  have  been  the  tie  of  consanguinity 
which  first  drew  them  together.  But  there  was  evidently 
a  thorough  congeniality  of  the  most  unlucky  sort  between 
them ;  and  from  their  first  meeting,  as  undergraduates  at 
Jesus,  until  the  premature  death  of  the  elder,  they  contin- 
ued to  supply  each  other's  minds  with  precisely  that  sort 
of  occupation  and  stimulus  of  which  each  by  the  grace  of 
nature  stood  least  in  need.  That  their  close  intimacy  was 
ill-calculated  to  raise  Sterne's  reputation  in  later  years  may 
be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  Hall  Stevenson  afterwards 


n.]  HALIFAX  AND  CAilBRIDGE.  15 

obtained  literary  notoriety  by  the  publication  of  Crazy 
Tales,  a  collection  of  coraic  but  extremely  broad  ballads, 
in  ^Yllich  his  clerical  friend  was  quite  unjustly  suspected  of 
having  had  a  hand.  Mr.  Ilall  was  also  reported,  whether 
truly  or  falsely,  to  have  been  a  member  of  Wilkes's  famous  ".. 
confraternity  of  Medmenham  Abbey  ;  and  from  this  it  was 
an  easy  step  for  gossip  to  advance  to  the  assertion  that  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Sterne  had  himself  been  admitted  to  that  unholy 
order. 

Among  acquaintances  which  the  young  sizar  of  Jesus 
might  have  more  profitably  made  at  Cambridge,  but  did 
not,  was  that  of  a  student  destined,  like  himself,  to  leave 
behind  him  a  name  famous  in  English  letters.  Gray,  born 
three  years  later  than  Sterne,  had  entered  a  year  after  him 
at  Cambridge  as  a  pensioner  of  Peterhouse,  and  the  two 
students  went  through  their  terms  too-ether,  thouo-h  the 
poet  at  the  time  took  no  degree.  There  was  probably  lit- 
tle enough  in  common  between  the  shy,  fastidious,  slightly 
effeminate  pensioner  of  Peterhouse,  and  a  scholar  of  Jesus, 
whose  chief  friend  and  comrade  was  a  man  like  Hall;  and 
no  close  intimacy  between  the  two  men,  if  they  had  come 
across  each  other,  would  have  been  very  likely  to  arise. 
But  it  does  not  appear  that  they  could  have  ever  met  or 
heard  of  each  other,  for  Gray  writes  of  Sterne,  after  Tris- 
tram Shandy  had  made  him  famous,  in  terms  which  clear- 
ly show  that  he  did  not  recall  his  fellow-undergraduate. 

In  January,  1736,  Sterne  took  his  B.A.  degree,  and  quit- 
ted Cambridge  for  York,  where  another  of  his  father's 
brothers  now  makes  his  appearance  as  his  patron.  Dr. 
Jacques  Sterne  was  the  second  son  of  Simon  Sterne,  of 
Elvington,  and  a  man  apparently  of  more  marked  and  vig- 
orous character  than  any  of  his  brothers.  What  induced 
him  now  to  take  notice  of  the  nephew,  whom  in  boyhood 


16  STERNE.  [chap. 

and  early  youth  lie  had  left  to  the  unshared  guardianship 
of  his  brother,  and  brother's  son,  does  not  appear;  but  the 
personal  history  of  this  energetic  pluralist — Prebendary  of 
Durham,  Archdeacon  of  Cleveland,  Canon  Residentiary, 
Precentor,  Prebendary,  and  Archdeacon  of  York,  Rector  of 
Rise,  and  Rector  of  Hornsey-cum-Riston — suggests  the  sur- 
mise that  he  detected  qualities  in  the  young  Cambridge 
graduate  which  would  make  him  useful.  For  Dr.  Sterne 
was  a  typical  specimen  of  the  Churchman -politician,  in 
days  when  both  components  of  the  compound  word 
meant  a  good  deal  more  than  they  do  now.  The  Arch- 
deacon was  a  devoted  Whig,  a  Hanoverian  to  the  back- 
bone ;  and  he  held  it  his  duty  to  support  the  Protestant 
succession,  not  only  by  the  spiritual  but  by  the  secular  arm. 
He  was  a  great  electioneerer,  as  befitted  times  when  the 
claims  of  two  rival  dynasties  virtually  met  upon  the  hust- 
ings, and  he  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  great  Yorkshire 
contest  of  the  year  1734.  His  most  vigorous  display  of 
energy,  however,  was  made,  as  was  natural,  in  "  the  '45." 
The  Whig  Archdeacon,  not  then  Archdeacon  of  the  East 
Riding,  nor  as  yet  quite  buried  under  the  mass  of  prefer- 
ments which  he  afterwards  accumulated,  seems  to  have 
thought  that  this  indeed  was  the  crisis  of  his  fortunes,  and 
that,  unless  he  was  prepared  to  die  a  mere  prebendary, 
canon,  and  rector  of  one  or  two  benefices,  now  was  the 
time  to  strike  a  blow  for  his  advancement  in  the  Church. 
His  bustling  activity  at  this  trying  time  was  indeed  por- 
tentous, and  at  last  took  the  form  of  arresting  the  unfort- 
unate Dr.  Burton  (the  original  of  Dr.  Slop),  on  suspicion 
of  holding  communication  with  the  invading  army  of  the 
Pretender,  then  on  its  march  southward  from  Edinburgh. 
The  suspect,  who  was  wholly  innocent,  was  taken  to  Lon- 
don and  kept  in  custody  for  nearly  a  year  before  being 


II.]  HALIFAX  AND  CAMBRIDGE.  11 

discljai'o-ecl,  after  \vliicli,  bv  wav  of  a  sligjht  redress,  a  letter 
of  reprimand  for  bis  twj)  de  zele  was  sent  by  direction  of 
Lord  Carteret  to  tbe  militant  dignitary.  But  tbe  desired 
end  was  nevertlielcss  attained,  and  Dr.  Sterne  succeeded  in 
crowning  tbe  edifice  of  bis  ecclesiastical  bonours.* 

Tbere  can  be  little  doubt  tbat  patronage  extended  by 
sucb  an  uncle  to  sucb  a  nepbew  received  its  fall  equiva- 
lent in  some  way  or  otber,  and  indeed  tbe  Memoir  gives 
us  a  clue  to  tbe  mode  in  wbicb  payment  was  made.  "  My 
uncle,"  writes  Sterne,  describing  tbeir  subsequent  rupture, 
"  quarrelled  witb  me  because  I  would  not  write  paragrapbs 
in  tbe  newspapers ;  tbougb  be  was  a  party-man,  I  was  not, 
and  detested  sucb  dirty  work,  tbinking  it  beneatb  me. 
From  tbat  time  be  became  my  bitterest  enemy.''  Tbe 
date  of  tbis  quarrel  cannot  be  precisely  fixed ;  but  we 
gatber  from  an  autograpb  letter  (now  in  tbe  Britisb  Mu- 
seum) from  Sterne  to  Arcbdeacon  Blackburne  tbat  by  tbe 
year  1750  tbe  two  men  bad  for  some  time  ceased  to  be  on 
friendly  terms.  Probably,  bowever,  tbe  breacb  occurred 
subsequently  to  tbe  rebellion  of  '45,  and  it  may  be  tbat  it 
arose  out  of  tbe  excess  of  partisan  zeal  wbicb  Dr.  Sterne 
developed  in  tbat  year,  and  wbicb  bis  nepbew  very  likely 

^  A  ouce-familiar  piece  of  humorous  verse  describes  the  upset  of 
a  coach  containing  a  clerical  pluralist : 

"  When  struggling  on  the  ground  was  seen 
A  Rector,  Yicar,  Canon,  Dean ; 
You  might  have  thought  the  coach  was  full, 
But  no  :  'twas  onlv  Dr.  Bull." 

Dr.  .Jacques  Sterne,  however,  might  have  been  thrown  out  of  one  of 
the  more  capacious  vehicles  of  the  London  General  Omnibus  Com- 
pany, with  almost  the  same  misleading  effect  upon  those  who  only 
Iieard  of  the  mishap. 


18  STERNE.  [chap. 

did  not,  ill  his  opinion,  sufficiently  share.  But  this  is 
quite  consistent  with  the  younger  man's  having  up  to  that 
time  assisted  the  elder  in  his  party  polemics.  He  certainly 
speaks  in  his  "  Letters"  of  his  having  "  employed  his  brains 
for  an  ungrateful  person,"  and  the  remark  is  made  in  a 
way  and  in  a  connexion  which  seems  to  imply  that  the 
services  rendered  to  his  uncle  Avere  mainly  literary.  If  so, 
his  declaration  that  he  "  would  not  write  paragraphs  in  the 
newspapers"  can  only  mean  that  he  would  not  go  on  writ- 
ing them.  Be  this  as  it  may,  however,  it  is  certain  that 
the  Archdeacon  for  some  time  found  his  account  in  main- 
taining friendly  relations  with  his  nephew,  and  that  during 
that  period  he  undoubtedly  did  a  good  deal  for  his  ad- 
vancement. Sterne  w\ns  ordained  deacon  by  the  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  in  March,  1736,  only  three  months  after  taking  his 
B. A. degree,  and  took  priest's  orders  in  August,  1738,  where- 
upon his  uncle  immediately  obtained  for  him  the  living  of 
Sutton-on-the-Forest,  into  which  he  w^as  inducted  a  few- 
days  afterwards.  Other  preferments  followed,  to  be  noted 
hereafter;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  until  the  quarrel 
occurred  about  the  "  party  paragraphs "  the  Archdeacon 
did  his  duty  by  his  nephew  after  the  peculiar  fashion  of 
that  time.  When  that  quarrel  came,  however,  it  seems  to 
have  snapped  more  ties  than  one,  for  in  the  Memoir  Sterne 
speaks  of  his  youngest  sister  Catherine  as  "  still  living,  but 
most  unhappily  estranged  from  me  by  ray  uncle's  wicked- 
ness and  her  own  folly."  Of  his  elder  sister  Mary,  who 
was  born  at  Lille  a  year  before  himself,  he  records  that 
"  she  married  one  Weemans  in  Dublin,  who  used  her  most 
unmercifully,  spent  his  substance,  became  a  bankrupt,  and 
left  my  poor  sister  to  shift  for  herself,  which  she  was  able 
to  do  but  for  a  few  months,  for  she  went  to  a  friend's 
house  in  the  country  and  died  of  a  broken  heart."     Truly 


II.]  HALIFAX  AXD  CAMBRIDGE.  19 

an  unlucky  family/  Only  three  to  survive  tlie  bardsliips 
among  whicli  the  years  of  their  infancy  were  passed,  and 
this  to  be  the  history  of  two  out  of  the  three  survivors ! 

^  The  mother,  Mrs.  Sterne,  makes  her  appearance  once  more  for  a 
moment  in  or  about  the  year  1Y58.  Horace  "Walpole,  and  after  him 
Byron,  accused  Sterne  of  having  "  preferred  whining  over  a  dead  ass 
to  relieving  a  living  mother,"  and  the  former  went  so  far  as  to  de- 
clare "  on  indubitable  authority"  that  Mrs.  Sterne,  "  who  kept  a  school 
(in  Ireland),  having  run  in  debt  on  account  of  an  extravagant  daugh- 
ter, would  have  rotted  in  a  gaol  if  the  parents  of  her  scholars  had  not 
raised  a  subscription  for  her."  Even  "  the  indubitable  authority," 
however,  does  not  positively  assert — whatever  may  be  meant  to  be 
insinuated — that  Sterne  himself  did  nothing  to  assist  his  mother, 
and  Mr.  Fitzgerald  justly  points  out  that  to  pay  the  wJiole  debts  of 
a  bankrupt  school  might  well  have  be^n  beyond  a  Yorkshire  clergy- 
man's means.  Anyhow  there  is  evidence  that  Sterne  at  a  later  date 
than  this  was  actively  concerning  himself  about  his  mother's  inter- 
ests. She  afterwards  came  to  York,  whither  he  went  to  meet  her; 
and  he  then  writes  to  a  friend :  "  I  trust  my  poor  mother's  affair  is 
bv  this  time  ended  to  oxer  comfort  and  hers." 


CHAPTER  III. 

LIFE   AT   SUTTOX. MAKRIAGE. THE   PARISH   PRIEST. 

(1T38-1759.) 

Great  writers  wlio  spring  late  and  suddenly  from  obscu- 
rity into  fame  and  yet  die  early,  must  always  form  more  or 
less  perplexing  subjects  of  literary  biography.  The  proc- 
esses of  their  intellectual  and  artistic  growth  lie  hidden  in 
nameless  years ;  their  genius  is  not  revealed  to  the  world 
until  it  has  reached  its  full  maturity,  and  many  aspects  of 
it,  which,  perhaps,  would  have  easily  explained  themselves 
if  the  gradual  development  had  gone  on  before  men's  eyes, 
remain  often  unexplained  to  the  last.  By  few,  if  any,  of 
the  more  celebrated  English  men  of  letters  is  this  observa- 
tion so  forcibly  illustrated  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  Sterne  :  the 
obscure  period  of  his  life  so  greatly  exceeded  in  duration 
the  brief  season  of  his  fame,  and  its  obscurity  was  so  ex- 
ceptionally profound.  He  was  forty  -  se^'en  years  of  age 
when,  at  a  bound,  he  achieved  celebrity ;  he  was  not  five- 
and-fifty  when  he  died.  And  though  it  might  be  too  much 
to  say  that  the  artist  sprang,  like  the  reputation,  full-grown 
into  being,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  there  are  no  marks 
of  positive  immaturity  to  be  detected  even  in  the  earliest 
public  displays  of  his  art  His  work  grows,  indeed,  most 
marvellously  in  vividness  and  symmetry  as  he  proceeds,  but 
there  are  no  visible  signs  of  growth  in  the  workman^'s  skill. 


CHAP.  III.]  LIFE  AT  SUTTOX.  21 

Even  when  the  highest  point  of  finish  is  attained  we  can- 
not say  that  the  hand  is  any  more  cunning  than  it  was 
from  the  first.  As  well  might  we  say  that  the  last  light 
touches  of  the  sculptor's  chisel  upon  the  perfected  statue 
are  more  skilful  than  its  first  vigorous  strokes  upon  the 
shapeless  block. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  Sterne  must  have  been  storing 
up  his  material  of  observation,  secreting  his  reflections  on 
life  and  character,  and  consciously  or  unconsciously  matur- 
ing his  powers  of  expression,  during  the  whole  of  those  si- 
lent twenty  years  which  have  now  to  be  passed  under  brief 
review.  AYith  one  exception,  to  be  noted  presently,  the 
only  known  writings  of  his  which  belong  to  this  period 
are  sermons,  and  these  —  a  mere  "scratch"  collection  of 
pulpit  discourses,  which,  as  soon  as  he  had  gained  the  pub- 
lic ear,  he  hastened  in  characteristic  fashion  to  rummage 
from  his  desk  and  carry  to  the  book-market — throw  no 
light  upon  the  problem  before  us.  There  arc  sermons  of 
Sterne  which  alike  in  manner  and  matter  disclose  the  au- 
thor of  Tristram  Shandi/ ;  but  they  are  not  among  those 
which  he  preached  or  wrote  before  that  work  was  given  to 
the  world.  They  are  not  its  ancestors  but  its  descendants. 
They  belong  to  the  post-Shandian  period,  and  are  in  obvi- 
ous imitation  of  the  Sliandian  style ;  while  in  none  of  the 
earlier  ones — not  even  in  that  famous  homily  on  a  Good 
Conscience,  which  did  not  succeed  till  Corporal  Trim 
preached  it  before  the  brothers  Shandy  and  Dr.  Slop — 
can  we  trace  either  the  trick  of  style  or  the  turn  of  thought 
that  give  piquancy  to  the  novel.  Yet  the  peculiar  quali- 
ties of  mind,  and  the  special  faculty  of  workmanship  of 
which  this  turn  of  thought  and  trick  of  style  were  the 
product,  must  of  course  have  been  potentially  present  from 
the  beginning.     Men  do  not  blossom  forth  as  wits,  hu- 


22  STERNE.  [chap. 

mourists,  masterly  delineators  of  character,  and  skilful  per- 
formers on  a  liiglily-strung  and  carefully-tuned  sentimental 
instrument  all  at  once,  after  entering  their  "  forties ;"  and 
the  only  wonder  is  that  a  possessor  of  these  powers — some 
of  them  of  the  kind  which,  as  a  rule,  and  in  most  men, 
seeks  almost  as  irresistibly  for  exercise  as  even  the  poetic 
instinct  itself- — should  have  been  held  so  long  unemployed. 
There  is,  however,  one  very  common  stimulus  to  literary 
exertions  which  in  Sterne's  case  was  undoubtedly  wanting 
— a  superabundance  of  unoccupied  time.  We  have  little 
reason,  it  is  true,  to  suppose  that  this  light-minded  and 
valetudinarian  Yorkshire  parson  was  at  any  period  of  his 
life  an  industrious  "  parish  priest ;"  but  it  is  probable, 
nevertheless,  that  time  never  hung  very  heavily  upon  his 
hands.  In  addition  to  the  favourite  amusements  which  he 
enumerates  in  the  Memoir,  he  was  all  his  days  addicted  to 
one  which  is,  perhaps,  the  most  absorbing  of  all — flirtation. 
Philandering,  and  especially  philandering  of  the  Platonic 
and  ultra-sentimental  order,  is  almost  the  one  human  pas- 
time of  which  its  votaries  never  seem  to  tire ;  and  its  con- 
stant ministrations  to  human  vanity  may  serve,  perhaps, 
to  account  for  their  unwearied  absorption  in  its  pursuit. 
Sterne's  first  love  affair — an  affair  of  which,  unfortunately, 
the  consequences  were  more  lasting  than  the  passion — took 
place  immediately  upon  his  leaving  Cambridge.  To  relate 
it  as  he  relates  it  to  his  daughter :  "  At  York  I  became  ac- 
quainted with  your  mother,  and  courted  her  for  two  years. 
She  owned  she  liked  me,  but  thought  herself  not  rich 
enough  or  me  too  poor  to  be  joined  together.  She  went 
to  her  sister's  in  S[taffordshire],  and  I  wrote  to  her  often. 
I  believe  then  she  was  partly  determined  to  have  me,  but 
"would  not  say  so.  At  her  return  she  fell  into  a  con- 
sumption, and  one  evening  that  I  was  sitting  by  her,  with 


in.]  MARRIAGE.  23 

an  almost  broken  heart  to  see  lier  so  ill,  she  said :  '  My 
dear  Laury,  I  never  can  be  yours,  for  I  verily  believe  I 
have  not  long*  to  live !  but  I  have  left  you  every  shil- 
ling of  my  fortune.'  Upon  that  she  showed  me  her  Tvill. 
This  generosity  overpowered  me.  It  pleased  God  that 
she  recovered,  and  we  were  married  in  1741."  The 
name  of  this  lady  was  Elizabeth  Lumley,  and  it  was  to 
her  that  Sterne  addressed  those  earliest  letters  which 
his  daughter  included  in  the  collection  published  by  her 
some  eight  years  after  her  father's  death.  They  were 
added,  the  preface  tells  us,  *'  in  justice  to  Mr.  Sterne's 
delicate  feelings ;"  and  in  our  modern  usage  of  the  word 
"  delicate,"  as  equivalent  to  infirm  of  health  and  probably 
short  of  life,  they  no  doubt  do  full  justice  to  the  passion 
which  they  are  supposed  to  express.  It  would  be  unfair, 
of  course,  to  judge  any  love-letters  of  that  period  by  the 
standard  of  sincerity  applied  in  our  own  less  artificial  age. 
All  such  compositions  seem  frigid  and  formal  enough  to 
us  of  to-day  ;  yet  in  most  cases  of  genuine  attachment  we 
usually  find  at  least  a  sentence  here  and  there  in  which  the 
natural  accents  of  the  heart  make  themselves  heard  above 
the  affected  modulations  of  the  style.  But  the  letters  of 
Sterne's  courtship  maintain  the  pseudo -poetic,  shepherd- 
and-shepherdess  strain  throughout ;  or,  if  the  lover  ever 
abandons  it,  it  is  only  to  make  somewhat  maudlin  record 
of  those  "  tears "  which  flowed  a  little  too  easily  at  all 
times  throughout  his  life.  These  letters,  however,  have  a 
certain  critical  interest  in  their  bearing  upon  those  sensi- 
bilities which  Sterne  afterwards  learned  to  cultivate  in  a 
forcing-frame,  with  a  view  to  the  application  of  their  prod- 
uce to  the  purposes  of  an  art  of  pathetic  writing  which 
simulates  nature  with  such  admirable  fidelity  at  its  best, 
and  descends  to  such  sino-ular  bathos  at  its  worst. 


24  STERNE.  [chap. 

Tbe  marriage  preluded  by  this  courtship  did  not  take 
place  till  Sterne  had  already  been  three  years  Vicar  of  Sut- 
ton-on-the-Forest,  the  benefice  ^vhich  had  been  procured 
for  him  by  his  uncle  the  Archdeacon ;  through  "whose  in- 
terest also  he  was  appointed  successively  to  two  prebends 
— preferments  which  were  less  valuable  to  him  for  their 
emolument  than  for  the  ecclesiastical  status  which  they 
conferred  upon  him,  for  the  excuse  which  they  gave  him 
for  periodical  visits  to  the  cathedral  city  to  fulfil  the  resi- 
dential conditions  of  his  offices,  and  for  the  opportunity 
thus  afforded  him  of  mixing  in  and  studying  the  society 
of  the  Close.  Upon  his  union  with  Miss  Lumley,  and,  in 
a  somewhat  curious  fashion,  by  her  means,  he  obtained  in 
addition  the  living  of  Stillington.  "A  friend  of  hers  in 
the  South  had  promised  her  that  if  she  married  a  clei'gy- 
raan  in  Yorkshire,  when  the  living  became  vacant  he  would 
make  her  a  compliment  of  it ;"  and  made  accordingly  this 
singular  "compliment"  was.  At  Sutton  Sterne  remained 
nearly  twenty  years,  doing  duty  at  both  places,  during 
which  time  "books,  painting,  fiddling,  and  shooting  were," 
he  says,  "  my  chief  amusements."  With  what  success  he 
shot,  and  with  what  skill  he  fiddled,  we  know  not.  Ilis 
writings  contain  not  a  few  musical  metaphors  and  allu- 
sions to  music,  which  seem  to  indicate  a  competent  ac- 
quaintance with  its  technicalities ;  but  the  specimen  of 
his  powers  as  an  artist,  which  Mr.  Fitzgerald  has  repro- 
duced from  his  illustrations  of  a  volume  of  poems  by  Mr. 
AYoodhull,  does  not  dispose  one  to  rate  highly  his  pro- 
ficiency in  this  accomplishment.  We  may  expect  that, 
after  all,  it  was  the  first-mentioned  of  his  amusements  in 
which  he  took  the  greatest  delight,  and  that  neither  the 
brush,  the  bow,  nor  the  fowling-piece  was  nearly  so  often 
in  his  hand  as  the  book.     AYithin  a  few  miles  of  Sutton, 


III.]  MARRIAGE.  25 

at  Skelton  Castle,  an  almost  unique  Roman  stronghold, 
since  modernized  by  Gotliic  hands,  dwelt  his  college-friend 
John  Hall  Stevenson,  whose  "«-ell-stocked  library  contained 
a  choice  but  heterogeneous  collection  of  books — old  French 
"ana,"  and  the  learning  of  mediaeval  doctors — books  in- 
tentionally and  books  unintentionally  comic,  the  former  of 
■v\'hich  Sterne  read  with  an  only  too  retentive  a  memory  for 
their  jests,  and  the  latter  with  an  acutely  humorous  appre- 
ciation of  their  solemn  trifling.  Later  on  it  will  be  time  to 
note  the  extent  to  which  he  utilized  these  results  of  his 
widely  discursive  reading,  and  to  examine  the  legitimacy  of 
the  mode  in  which  he  used  them  :  here  it  is  enough  to 
say  generally  that  the  materials  for  many  a  burlesque  chap- 
ter of  Tristram  Shandy  must  have  been  unconsciously 
storing  themselves  in  his  mind  in  many  an  amused  hour 
passed  by  Sterne  in  the  library  of  Skelton  Castle. 

But  before  finally  quitting  this  part  of  my  snbject  it 
may  be  as  well,  perhaps,  to  deal  somewhat  at  length  with  a 
matter  which  will  doubtless  have  to  be  many  times  inci- 
dentally referred  to  in  the  course  of  this  study,  but  which 
I  now  hope  to  relieve  myself  from  the  necessity  of  doing 
more  than  touch  upon  hereafter.  I  refer  of  course  to 
Sterne's  perpetually  recurring  flirtations.  This  is  a  mat- 
ter almost  as  impossible  to  omit  from  any  biography  of 
Sterne  as  it  would  be  to  omit  it  from  any  biography  of 
Goethe.  The  English  humourist  did  not,  it  is  true,  engage 
in  the  pastime  in  the  serious,  not  to  say  scientific,  spirit  of 
the  German  philosopher-poet ;  it  was  not  deliberately  made 
by  the  former  as  by  the  latter  to  contribute  to  his  artistic 
deyelopment ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  hardly  open  to  doubt 
that  Sterne's  philandering  propensities  did  exercise  an  in- 
fluence upon  his  literary  character  and  work  in  more  ways 
than  one.     That  his  marriage  was  an  ill-assorted  and  un- 


26  STERXE.  [chap. 

happy  union  was  liardly  so  mncli  the  cause  of  Lis  incon- 
stancy as  its  effect.  It  may  well  be,  of  course,  that  the 
"dear  L.,"  Avhose  moral  and  mental  graces  her  lover  had 
celebrated  in  such  superfine,  sentimental  fashion,  was  a 
commonplace  person  enough.  That  she  was  really  a  wom- 
an of  the  exquisite  stolidity  of  Mrs.  Shandy,  and  that  her 
exasperating  feats  as  an  assentatrix  did,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested, supply  the  model  for  the  irresistibly  ludicrous  col- 
loquies between  the  philosopher  and  his  wife,  there  is  no 
sufficient  warrant  for  believing.  Bat  it  is  quite  possible 
that  the  daily  companion  of  one  of  the  most  indefatigable 
jesters  that  ever  lived  may  have  been  unable  to  see  a  joke ; 
that  she  regarded  her  husband's  wilder  drolleries  as  mere 
horse-collar  grimacing,  and  that  the  point  of  his  subtler 
humour  escaped  her  altogether.  But  even  if  it  were  so,  it 
is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  doubtful  whether  Sterne  suffered 
at  all  on  this  m-ound  from  the  wounded  feclinirs  of  the 
7nari  incom]_oris,  wdiile  it  is  next  to  certain  that  it  does  not 
need  the  sting- of  any  such  disappointment  to  account  for 
his  alienation.  He  must  have  had  plenty  of  time  and  op- 
portunity to  discover  Miss  Lumley's  intellectual  limitations 
during  the  two  years  of  his  courtship ;  and  it  is  not  likely 
that,  even  if  they  were  as  well  marked  as  Mrs.  Shandy's 
own,  they  w^ould  have  done  much  of  themselves  to  estrange 
the  couple.  Sympathy  is  not  the  necessity  to  the  humour- 
ist which  the  poet  finds,  or  imagines,  it  to  be  to  himself : 
the  humourist,  indeed,  will  sometimes  contrive  to  extract 
from  the  very  absence  of  sympathy  in  those  about  him  a 
keener  relish  for  his  reflections.  With  sentiment,  indeed, 
and  still  more  with  sentimentalism,  the  case  would  of  course 
be  different ;  but  as  for  Mr.  Sterne's  demands  for  sympa- 
thy in  that  department  of  his  life  and  art,  one  may  say 
without  the  least  hesitation  that  they  would  have  been  be- 


III.]  MAKRIAGE.  27 

youd  the  power  of  any  one  vroman,  liowcver  distinguislicd 
a  disciple  of  the  "Laura  Matilda"  school,  to  satisfy.  "I 
must  ever,"  he  frankly  says  in  one  of  the  "  Yorick  to  Eliza" 
letters,  "I  must  ever  have  some  Dnlcinca  in  my  head:  it 
harmonizes  the  soul ;"  and  he  might  have  added  that  he 
found  it  impossible  to  sustain  the  harmony  without  fre- 
quently changing  the  Dulcinea.  One  may  suspect  that 
Mrs.  Sterne  soon  had  cause  for  jealousy,  and  it  is  at  least 
certain  that  several  years  before  Sterne's  emergence  into 
notoriety  their  estrangement  was  complete.  One  daughter 
was  born  to  them  in  1745,  but  lived  scarcely  more  than 
long  enough  to  be  rescued  from  the  limhus  infantium  by 
the  prompt  rites  of  the  Church.  The  child  was  christened 
Lydia,  and  died  on  the  following  day.  Its  place  was  filled 
in  1747  by  a  second  daughter,  also  christened  Lydia,  who 
lived  to  become  the  wife  of  M.  de  Medaile,  and  the  not 
very  judicious  editress  of  the  posthumous  "Letters."  Fori 
her  as  she  grew  up  Sterne  conceived  a  genuine  and  truly] 
fatherly  affection,  and  it  is  in  writing  to  her  and  of  her 
that  we  see  him  at  his  best ;  or  rather  one  might  say  it  is 
almost  only  then  that  we  can  distinguish  the  true  notes  of 
the  heart  through  that  habitual  falsetto  of  sentimcntalism 
which  distinguishes  most  of  Sterne's  communications  with 
the  other  sex.  There  was  no  subsequent  issue  of  the  mar- 
riage, and,  from  one  of  the  letters  most  indiscreetly,  in- 
cluded in  Madame  de  Medalle's  collection,  it  is  to  be  as- 
certained that  some  four  years  or  so  after  Lydia's  birth  the 
relations  between  Sterne  and  Mrs.  Sterne  ceased  to  be  con- 
jugal, and  never  again  resumed  that  character. 

It  is,  however,  probable,  upon  the  husband's  own  con- 
fessions, that  he  had  given  his  wife  earlier  cause  for  jeal- 
ousy, and  certainly  from  the  time  when  he  begins  to  re- 
veal himself  in  correspondence  there  seems  to  be  hardly 


28  STERXE.  [chap. 

a  moment  wlicn  some  sucli  cause  was  not  in  existence 
— in  the  person  of  this,  that,  or  the  other  lackadaisical 
damsel  or  coquettish  matron.  From  Miss  Fourmantellc, 
the  "  dear,  dear  Kitty,"  to  Avhom  Sterne  "was  making  vio- 
lent love  in  1759,  the  year  of  the  York  publication  of 
Tristram  Shanchj,  down  to  Mrs.  Draper,  the  heroine  of 
the  famous  "  Yorick  to  Eliza  "  letters,  the  list  of  ladies 
who  seem  to  have  kindled  flames  in  that  susceptible  breast 
is  almost  as  long  and  more  real  than  the  roll  of  mistresses 
immortalized  by  Horace.  IIow  Mrs.  Sterne  at  first  bore 
herself  under  her  husband's  ostentatious  neglect  there  is 
no  direct  evidence  to  show.  That  she  ultimately  took 
refuge  in  indifference  we  can  perceive,  but  it  is  to  be  fear- 
ed that  she  was  not  always  able  to  maintain  the  attitude 
of  contemptuous  composure.  So,  at  least,  we  may  suspect 
from  the  evidence  of  that  Frenchman  who  met  "  le  bon  et 
agreable  Tristram,"  and  his  wife,  at  Montpellicr,  and  who, 
characteristically  sympathizing  with  the  inconstant  hus- 
band, declared  that  his  wife's  incessant  pursuit  of  him 
made  him  pass  "d'assez  mauvais  moments,"  which  he  bore 
"  with  the  patience  of  an  angel."  But,  on  the  whole,  Mrs. 
Sterne's  conduct  seems  by  her  husband's  own  admissions 
to  have  been  not  wanting  in  dignity. 

As  to  the  nature  of  Sterne's  love-affairs  I  have  come, 
though  not  without  hesitation,  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
j  were  most,  if  not  all  of  them,  what  is  called,  somewhat 
\  absurdly,  Platonic.  In  saying  this,  however,  I  am  by  no 
means  prepared  to  assert  that  they  would  all  of  them  have 
passed  muster  before  a  prosaic  and  unsentimental  British 
jury  as  mere  indiscretions,  and  nothing  worse.  Sterne's 
relations  with  Miss  Fourmantellc,  for  instance,  assumed  at 
last  a  profoundly  compromising  character,  and  it  is  far 
from  improbable  that  the  worst  construction  would  have 


III.]  MAERIAGR  29 

been  put  upon  tliom  by  one  of  tbe  plain-dealing-  tribunals 
aforesaid.  Certainly  a  young  -woman  -^bo  leaves  ber 
motber  at  York,  and  comes  up  to  London  to  reside  alone 
in  lodgings,  Avbere  slie  is  constantly  being  visited  by  a 
lover  ^vlio  is  biraself  living  en  gargon  in  tbe  metropolis, 
can  bardly  complain  if  ber  imprudence  is  fatal  to  ber  rep- 
utation ;  neitber  can  be  if  bis  own  suffers  in  tbe  same 
way.  But,  as  I  am  not  of  tbose  wbo  bold  tbat  tbe  con- 
ventionally "innocent"  is  tbe  equivalent  of  tbe  morally 
barmless  in  tins  matter,  I  cannot  regard  tbe  question  as 
■wortb  any  very  minute  investigation.  I  am  not  sure  tbat 
tbe  babitual  male  flirt,  wbo  neglects  bis  wife  to  sit  con- 
tinually languisbing  at  tbe  feet  of  some  otber  woman, 
gives  mucb  less  pain  and  scandal  to  otbers,  or  does  mucb 
less  miscbief  to  bimself  and  tbe  objects  of  bis  adoration, 
tban  tbe  tborougb-going  profligate ;  and  I  even  feel  tempt- 
ed to  risk  tbe  apparent  paradox  tbat,  from  tbe  artistic 
point  of  view,  Sterne  lost  ratber  tban  gained  by  tbe  gener- 
ally Platonic  cbaracter  of  bis  amours.  For,  as  it  was,  tbe 
restraint  of  one  instinct  of  bis  nature  implied  tbe  over-in- 
dulgence of  anotber  wbicb  stood  in  at  least  as  mucb  need 
of  cbastenment.  If  bis  love-affairs  stopped  sbort  of  tbe 
gratification  of  tbe  senses,  tbey  involved  a  perpetual  fond- 
ling and  caressing  of  tbose  effeminate  sensibilities  of  bis 
into  tbat  condition  of  byper-iestbesia  wbicb,  tbougb  Sterne 
regarded  it  as  tbe  strengtb,  was  in  reality  tbe  weakness,  of 
bis  art. 

Injurious,  bowever,  as  was  tbe  effect  wbicb  Sterne's  pbi- 
landerings  exercised  upon  bis  personal  and  literary  cbarac- 
ter, it  is  not  likely  tbat,  at  least  at  tbis  period  of  bis  life 
at  Sutton,  tbey  bad  in  any  degree  compromised  bis  repu- 
tation. For  tbis  be  bad  provided  in  otber  ways,  and  prin- 
cipally by  bis  exceedingly  injudicious  cboice  of  associates. 


30  STERXE.  [chap. 

*'  As  to  the  squire  of  the  parish,"  he  remarks  in  the  Me- 
moir, "  I  cannot  say  ^Ye  were  on  a  very  friendly  footing, 
but  at  Stillington  the  family  of  the  C[roft]s  showed  us  ev- 
ery kindness:  'twas  most  agreeable  to  be  within  a  mile  and 
a  half  of  an  amiable  family  who  were  ever  cordial  friends;" 
and  who,  it  may  be  added,  appear  to  have  been  Sterne's 
only  reputable  acquaintances.  For  the  satisfaction  of  all 
other  social  needs  he  seems  to  have  resorted  to  a  compan- 
ionship which  it  was  hardly  possible  for  a  clergyman  to 
frequent  without  scandal — that,  namely,  of  John  Hall  Ste- 
venson and  the  kindred  spirits  whom  he  delighted  to  col- 
lect around  him  at  Skelton — familiarly  known  as  "Crazy" 
Castle.  The  club  of  the  "Demoniacs,"  of  which  Sterne 
makes  mention  in  his  letters,  may  have  liad  nothing  very 
diabolical  about  it  except  the  name ;  but,  headed  as  it  was 
by  the  suspected  ex-comrade  of  Wilkes  and  his  brother 
monks  of  Medmcnham,  and  recruited  by  gay  militaires 
like  Colonels  Hall  and  Lee,  and  "fast"  parsons  like  the 
Rev.  "  Panty  "  Lascelles  (mock  godson  of  Pantagruel),  it 
was  certainly  a  society  in  which  the  Vicar  of  Sutton  could 
not  expect  to  enroll  himself  without  offence.  We  may 
fairly  suppose,  therefore,  that  it  was  to  his  association  with 
these  somewhat  too  "jolly  companions"  that  Sterne  owed- 
that  disfavour  among  decorous  country  circles,  of  which 
he  shows  resentful  consciousness  in  the  earlier  chapters  of 
Tristram  Shandy. 

But  before  we  finally  cross  the  line  which  separates  the 
life  of  the  obscure  country  parson  from  the  life  of  the 
famous  author,  a  word  or  two  must  be  said  of  that  piece 
of  writing  which  was  alluded  to  a  few  pages  back  as  the 
only  known  exception  to  the  generally  "  professional "  char- 
acter of  all  Sterne's  compositions  of  the  pre-Shandian  era. 
This  was   a  piece   in  the  allegoric-satirical   style,  which, 


III.]  THE  PARISH  PRIEST.  31 

tliougli  not  very  remarkable  in  itself,  may  not  improbably 
have  helped  to  determine  its  author's  thoughts  in  the 
direction  of  more  elaborate  literary  efforts.  In  the  year 
1758  a  dispute  had  arisen  between  a  certain  Dr.  Topham, 
an  ecclesiastical  lawyer  in  large  local  practice,  and  Dr. 
Fountayne,  the  then  Dean  of  York.  This  dispute  had 
originated  in  an  attempt  on  tbe  part  of  the  learned  ci- 
vilian, who  appears  to  have  been  a  pluralist  of  an  excep- 
tionally insatiable  order,  to  obtain  the  reversion  of  one  of 
his  numerous  offices  for  his  son,  alleging  a  promise  made 
to  him  on  that  behalf  by  the  Archbishop.  This  promise 
— which  had,  in  fact,  been  given — was  legally  impossible  of 
performance,  and  upon  the  failure  of  his  attempt  the  dis- 
appointed Topham  turned  upon  the  Dean,  and  maintained 
that  by  him^  at  any  rate,  he  had  been  promised  another 
place  of  the  value  of  five  guineas  per  annum,  and  appro- 
priately known  as  the  "  Commissaryship  of  Pickering  and 
Pocklington."  This  the  Dean  denied,  and  thereupon  Dr. 
Topham  fired  off  a  pamphlet  setting  forth  the  circum- 
stances of  the  alleged  promise,  and  protesting  against  the 
wrong  inflicted  upon  him  by  its  non-performance.  At 
this  point  Sterne  came  to  Dr.  Fountayne's  assistance  with 
a  sarcastic  apologue  entitled  the  "  History  of  a  good  Warm 
"Watchcoat,"  which  had  "  hung  up  many  years  in  the 
parish  vestry,''  and  showing  how  this  garment  had  so 
excited  the  cupidity  of  Trim,  the  sexton,  that  "nothing 
would  serve  him  but  he  must  take  it  home,  to  have  it 
converted  into  a  warm  under-petticoat  for  his  wife  and  a 
jerkin  for  himself  against  the  winter."  The  symbolization 
of  Dr.  Topham's  snug  "  patent  place,"  which  he  wished  to 
make  hereditary,  under  the  image  of  the  good  warm  watch- 
coat,  is  of  course  plain  enough ;  and  there  is  some  humour 
in  the  way  in  which  the  parson  (the  Archbishop)  discovers 


32  STERNE.  [chap.  hi. 

that  his  incautious  assent  to  Trim's  request  had  been  given 
ultra  vires.  Looking  through  the  parish  register,  at  the 
request  of  a  labourer  Avho  Avished  to  ascertain  his  age,  the 
parson  finds  express  words  of  bequest  leaving  the  watch- 
coat  "for  the  sole  use  of  the  sextons  of  the  church  for 
ever,  to  be  worn  by  them  respectively  on  winterly  cold 
nights,"  and  at  the  moment  when  he  is  exclaiming,  "  Just 
Heaven  !  what  an  escape  have  I  had !  Give  this  for  a 
petticoat  to  Trim's  wife !"  he  is  interrupted  by  Trim  him- 
self entering  the  vestry  with  "  the  coat  actually  ript  and 
cut  out "  ready  for  conversion  into  a  petticoat  for  his  wife. 
And  we  get  a  foretaste  of  the  familiar  Shandian  imperti- 
nence in  the  remark  which  follows,  that  "  there  are  many 
good  similes  subsisting  in  the  w'orld,  but  which  I  have 
neither  time  to  recollect  nor  look  for,  which  would  give 
you  an  idea  of  the  parson's  astonishment  at  Trim's  im- 
pudence." The  emoluments  of  "  Pickering  and  Pock- 
lington  "  appear  under  the  figure  of  a  "  pair  of  black  velvet 
plush  breeches"  which  ultimately  "  got  into  the  possession 
of  one  Lorry  Slim  (Sterne  himself,  of  course),  an  unlucky 
wight,  by  whom  they  are  still  worn  :  in  truth,  as  you  will 
guess,  they  are  very  thin  by  this  time." 

The  whole  thing  is  the  very  slightest  of  "  skits  ;"  and 
the  quarrel  having  been  accommodated  before  it  could  be 
published,  it  was  not  given  to  the  world  until  after  its 
author's  death.  But  it  is  interesting,  as  his  first  known 
attempt  in  this  line  of  composition,  and  the  grasping  sex- 
ton  deserves  remembrance,  if  only  as  having  handed  down 
his  name  to  a  far  more  famous  descendant. 


CHAPTER  lY. 


(1759-1760.) 

IIiTnERTO  we  have  had  to  construct  our  conception  of 
Sterne  out  of  materials  of  more  or  less  phiusiblc  conjecture. 
"\Ve  are  now  at  last  approaching  the  region  of  positive  evi- 
dence, and  henceforward,  down  almost  to  the  last  scene  of 
all,  Sterne's  doings  will  be  chronicled,  and  his  character  re- 
vealed, by  one  who  happens,  in  this  case,  to  be  the  best  of 
all  possible  biographers — the  man  himself.  Xot  that  such 
records  are  by  any  means  always  the  most  trustworthy  of 
evidence.  There  are  some  men  whose  real  character  is 
never  more  effectually  concealed  than  in  their  correspond- 
ence. But  it  is  not  so  with  Sterne.  The  careless,  slipshod 
letters  which  Madame  de  Medalle  "  pitchforhed  "  into  the 
book -market,  rather  than  edited,  are  highly  valuable  as 
pieces  of  autobiography.  They  are  easy,  naive,  and  nat- 
ural, rich  in  simple  self-disclosure  in  almost  every  page; 
and  if  they  have  more  to  tell  us  about  the  man  than 
the  writer,  they  are  yet  not  wanting  in  instructive  hints 
as  to  Sterne's  methods  of  composition  and  his  theories 
of  art. 

It  was  in  the  year  1759  that  the  Yicar  of  Sutton  and 
Prebendary  of  York — already,  no  doubt,  a  stone  of  stum- 
bling and  a  rock  of  offence  to  many  worthy  people  in  the 


34  STEENE.  [chap. 

county — conceived  the  idea  of  astonishing  and  scandalizing 
them  still  further  after  a  new  and  original  fashion.  His 
impulses  to  literary  production  were  probably  various,  and 
not  all  of  them,  or  perhaps  the  strongest  of  them,  of  the 
artistic  order.  The  first  and  most  urgent  was,  it  may  be 
suspected,  the  simplest  and  most  common  of  all  such  mo- 
tive forces.  Sterne,  in  all  likelihood,  was  in  want  of  money. 
He  was  not,  perhaps,  under  the  actual  instruction  of  that 
magister  artium  whom  the  Roman  satirist  has  celebrated ; 
for  he  declared,  indeed,  afterwards,  that  "  he  wrote  not  to 
be  fed,  but  to  be  famous."  But  the  context  of  the  passage 
shows  that  he  only  meant  to  deny  any  absolute  compul-' 
sion  to  write  for  mere  subsistence.  Between  this  sort  of 
constraint  and  that  gentler  form  of  pressure  which  arises 
from  the  wish  to  increase  an  income  sufficient  for  one's 
needs,  but  inadequate  to  one's  desires,  there  is  a  consider- 
able difference  ;  and  to  repudiate  the  one  is  not  to  disclaim 
the  other.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  certain  that  Sterne  engaged 
at  one  time  of  his  life  in  a  rather  speculative  sort  of  farm- 
ing, and  we  have  it  from  himself  in  a  passage  in  one  of  his 
letters,  which  may  be  jest,  but  reads  more  like  earnest,  that 
it  was  his  losses  in  this  business  that  first  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  literature.^  His  thoughts  once  set  in  that  direction, 
his  peculiar  choice  of  subject  and  method  of  treatment  are 
easily  comprehensible.  Pantagruclic  burlesque  came  to 
him,  if  not  naturally,  at  any  rate  by  "second  nature." 
He  had  a  strong  and  sedulousl}^  cultivated  taste  for  Rabe- 
laisian humour;  his  head  was  crammed  with  all  sorts  of 

^  "  I  was  once  such  a  puppy  myself,"  he  writes  to  a  certain  baronet 
whom  he  is  attempting  to  discourage  from  speculative  farming  of 
this  sort,  "  and  had  my  labour  for  my  pains  and  two  hundred  pounds 
out  of  pocket.  Curse  on  farming !  (I  said).  Let  us  see  if  the  pen 
will  not  succeed  better  than  the  spade." 


IT.]  "  TRISTEAM  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  I.  AXD  II.  35 

out-of-the-way  learning  constantly  tickling  bis  comic  sense 
by  its  very  uselessness ;  he  relished  more  keenly  than  any 
man  the  soleOjn  futilities  of  mediasval  doctors,  and  the  pe- 
dantic indecencies  of  casuist  fathers ;  and,  along  with  all 
these  temptations  to  an  enterprise  of  the  kind  upon  which 
he  entered,  he  had  been  experiencing  a  steady  relaxation 
of  deterrent  restraints.  He  had  fallen  out  with  his  uncle 
some  years  since,^  and  the  quarrel  had  freed  him  from  at 
least  one  influence  making  for  clerical  propriety  of  behav- 
iour. Ilis  incorrigible  levities  had  probably  lost  him  the 
countenance  of  most  of  his  more  serious  acquaintances; 
his  satirical  humour  had  as  probably  gained  him  personal 
enemies  not  a  few,  and  it  may  be  that  he  had  gradually 
contracted  something  of  that  "  naughty-boy  "  temper,  as 
we  may  call  it,  for  which  the  deliberate  and  ostentatious 
repetition  of  offences  has  an  inexplicable  charm.  It  seems 
clear,  too,  that,  growth  for  growth  with  this  spirit  of  brava- 
do, there  had  sprung  up — in  somewhat  incongruous  com- 
panionship, perhaps  —  a  certain  sense  of  wrong.  Along 
with  the  impulse  to  give  an  additional  shock  to  the  preju- 
dices he  had  already  offended,  Sterne  felt  impelled  to  vin- 
dicate what  he  considered  the  genuine  moral  Avorth  under- 
lying the  indiscretions  of  the  offender.  "What,  then,  could 
better  suit  him  than  to  compose  a  novel  in  which  he  might 
give  full  play  to  his  simious  humour,  startle  more  hideously 
than  ever  his  straighter-laced  neighbours,  defiantly  defend 
his  own  character,  and  caricature  whatever  eccentric  figure 

^  He  himself,  indeed,  makes  a  particular  point  of  this  in  explaining 
his  literary  venture.  "  Now  for  your  desire,"  he  writes  to  a  corre- 
spondent in  1*759,  "of  knowing  the  reason  of  my  turning  author? 
why,  truly  I  am  tired  of  employing  my  brains  for  other  people's  ad- 
vantage. 'Tis  a  foolish  sacrifice  I  have  made  for  some  years  for  an 
ungrateful  person." — Letters,  i.  82. 


36  STERXE.  [chap. 

in  the  society  around  liim  might  offer  the  most  tempting 
butt  for  ridicule? 

All  the  world  knows  how  far  he  ultimately  advanced 
beyond  the  simplicity  of  the  conception,  and  into  what  far 
hio'her  reo-ions  of  art  its  execution  led  him.  But  I  find  no 
convincing  reason  for  believing  that  Tristram  Shandy  had 
at  the  outset  any  more  seriously  artistic  purpose  than  this ; 
and  much  indirect  evidence  that  this,  in  fact,  it  was. 

The  humorous  figure  of  Mr.  Shandy  is,  of  course,  the 
.  (  Cervantic  centre  of  the  whole ;  and  it  was  out  of  him  and 
his  crotchets  that  Sterne,  no  doubt,  intended  from  the  first 
to  draw  the  materials  of  that  often  unsavoury  fun  which 
was  to  amuse  the  light-minded  and  scandalize  the  demure. 
But  it  can  hardly  escape  notice  that  the  two  most  elab- 
orate portraits  in  Vol.  I. — the  admirable  but  very  flatter- 
ingly idealized  sketch  of  the  author  himself  in  Yorick,  and 
the  Gilrayesque  caricature  of  Dr.  Slop — arc  drawn  with  a 
distinctly  polemical  purpose,  defensive  in  the  former  case 
and  offensive  in  the  latter.  On  the  other  hand,  with  the 
disappearance  of  Dr.  Slop  caricature  of  living  persons  dis- 
appears also ;  while,  after  the  famous  description  of  Yor- 
ick's  death-bed,  we  meet  with  uo  more  attempts  at  self- 
vindication.  It  seems  probable,  therefore,  that  long  before 
the  first  two  volumes  were  completed  Sterne  had  discovered 
the  artistic  possibilities  of  "  My  Uncle  Toby  "  and  "  Cor- 
poral Trim,"  and  had  realized  the  full  potentialities  of  hu- 
.  mour  contained  in  the  contrast  between  the  two  brothers 
X  Shandy.  The  very  work  of  sharpening  and  deepening  the 
'  outlines  of  this  humorous  antithesis,  while  it  made  the 
crack-brained  philosopher  more  and  more  of  a  burlesque 
unreality,  continually  added  new  touches  of  life  and  nature 
to  the  lineaments  of  the  simple-minded  soldier ;  and  it  was 
by  this  curious  and  half-accidental  process  that  there  came 


IV.]  "  TRISTRAM  SHANDY,"  VOLS.  I.  AND  II.  37 

to  be  added  to  the  gallery  of  Englisli  fiction  one  of  the 
most  perfect  and  delightful  portraits  that  it  possesses. 

We  know  from  internal  evidence  that  Tristram  Shandy 
■was  begun  in  the  early  days  of  1759;  and  the  first  two 
volumes  were  probably  completed  by  about  the  middle  of 
the  year.  "In  the  year  1760,"  writes  Sterne,  "I  went  up 
to  London  to  publish  my  two  first  volumes  of  Shand?/.'^ 
And  it  is  stated  in  a  note  to  this  passage,  as  cited  in  Scott's 
memoir,  that  the  first  edition  was  published  "  the  year  be- 
fore "  in  York.  There  is,  however,  no  direct  proof  that  it 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  public  before  the  beginning  of 
1760,  though  it  is  possible  that  the  date  of  its  publication 
may  just  have  fallen  within  the  year.  But,  at  all  events, 
on  the  1st  of  January,  1760,  an  advertisement  in  the  Pub- 
lic Advertiser  informed  the  world  that  "  this  day  "  was 
"published,  printed  on  superfine  writing-paper,  etc.,  The 
Life  and  Oj^inions  of  Tristram  Shandy.  York.  Printed 
for  and  sold  by  John  Hinxham,  Bookseller  in  Stonegate." 
The  great  London  publisher,  Dodsley,  to  whom  the  book 
had  been  offered,  and  who  had  declined  the  venture,  fig- 
ures in  the  advertisement  as  the  principal  London  book- 
seller from  whom  it  was  to  be  obtained.  It  seems  that 
only  a  few  copies  were  in  the  first  instance  sent  up  to  the 
London  market ;  but  they  fell  into  good  hands,  for  there 
is  evidence  that  Tristram  Shandy  had  attracted  the  notice 
of  at  least  one  competent  critic  in  the  capital  before  the 
month  of  January  was  out.  But  though  the  metropolitan 
success  of  the  book  was  destined  to  be  delayed  for  still  a 
month  or  two,  in  York  it  had  already  created  ^furore  in 
more  senses  than  one.  For,  in  fact,  and  no  wonder,  it  had 
in  many  quarters  given  the  deepest  offence.  Its  Rabelai- 
sian license  of  incident  and  allusion  was  calculated  to  of- 
fend the  proprieties — the  provincial  proprieties  especially — 


38  STERNE.  [chap. 

even  in  that  free-spoken  age ;  and  tliere  was  tbat  in  tlie 
boolc,  moreover,  which  a  provincial  society  may  be  count- 
ed on  to  abominate,  with  a  keener  if  less  disinterested  ab- 
horrence than  any  sins  against  decency.  It  contained,  or 
^vas  supposed  to  contain,  a  broadly  ludicrous  caricature  of 
one  well-known  local  physician  ;  and  an  allusion,  brief,  in- 
deed, and  covert,  but  highly  scandalous,  to  a  certain  "  droll 
foible"  attributed  to  another  personage  of  much  wider 
celebrity  in  the  scientific  world.  The  victim  in  the  latter 
case  was  no  lono-er  livino-;  and  this  circumstance  brouo'ht 
upon  Sterne  a  remonstrance  from  a  correspondent,  to 
which  he  replied  in  a  letter  so  characteristic  in  many  re- 
spects as  to  be  worth  quoting.  His  correspondent  was  a 
Dr.  *****  (asterisks  for  which  it  is  now  impossible  to 
substitute  letters) ;  and  the  burden  of  what  seem  to  have 
been  several  communications  in  speech  and  writing  on  the 
subject  was  the  maxim,  "  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum." 
AVitli  such  seriousness  and  severity  had  his  correspondent 
dwelt  upon  this  adage,  that  "  at  length,"  writes  Sterne, 
"you  have  made  me  as  serious  and  as  severe  as  yourself; 
but,  that  the  humours  you  have  stirred  up  might  not  work 
too  potently  within  me,  I  have  waited  four  days  to  cool 
myself  before  I  could  set  pen  to  paper  to  answer  you." 
And  thus  he  sets  forth  the  results  of  his  four  days'  delib- 
eration : 

"'Dc  movtuis  nil  nisi  bonum.'  I  declare  I  have  considered  the 
Avisdom  and  foundation  of  it  over  and  over  again  as  dispassionately 
and  charitably  as  a  good  Christian  can,  and,  after  all,  I  can  find  noth- 
ing in  it,  or  make  more  of  it  than  a  nonsensical  lullaby  of  some 
nurse,  put  into  Latin  by  some  pedant,  to  be  chanted  by  some  hypo- 
crite to  the  end  of  the  world  for  the  consolation  of  departing  lechers. 
'Tis,  I  own,  Latin,  and  I  think  that  is  all  the  weight  it  has,  for,  in 
plain  English,  'tis  a  loose  and  futile  position  below  a  dispute.  '  You 
are  not  to  speak  anything  of  the  dead  but  what  is  good.'     Why  so? 


IT.]  "  TRISTRAM  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  I.  AND  II.  39 

Who  says  so  ?  Xeither  reason  nor  Scripture.  Inspired  authors  have 
done  otherwise,  and  reason  and  common  sense  tell  me  that,  if  the 
characters  of  past  ages  and  men  are  to  be  drawn  at  all,  they  are  to 
be  drawn  like  themselves,  that  is,  with  their  excellences  and  their 
foibles  ;  and  it  as  much  a  piece  of  justice  to  the  world,  and  to  virtue, 
too,  to  do  the  one  as  the  other.  The  ruling  passion,  et  Ics  egaremcuts 
du  cceu)\  are  the  very  things  which  mark  and  distinguish  a  man's 
character,  in  which  I  would  as  soon  leave  out  a  man's  head  as  his 
hobby-horse.  However,  if,  like  the  poor  devil  of  a  painter,  we  must 
conform  to  the  pious  canon, '  De  mortuis,'  &c.,  which  I  own  has  a 
spice  of  piety  in  the  sound  of  it,  and  be  obliged  to  paint  both  our 
angels  and  our  devils  out  of  the  same  pot,  I  then  infer  that  our  Syd- 
enhams  and  our  Sangrados,  our  Lucretias  and  our  Messalinas,  our 
Somersets  and  our  Bolingbrokes,  are  alike  entitled  to  statues,  and 
all  the  historians  or  satirists  who  have  said  otherwise  since  they  de- 
parted this  life,  from  Sallust  to  S e,  are  guilty  of  the  crimes 

you  charge  me  with, '  cowardice  and  injustice.'  But  why  cowardice  ? 
'Because  'tis  not  courage  to  attack  a  dead  man  who  can't  defend 
himself.'  But  why  do  you  doctors  attack  such  a  one  with  your  in- 
cision knife  ?     Oh  !  for  the  good  of  the  living.     'Tis  my  plea." 

And,  having  given  tins  humorous  twist  to  his  argument, 
he  glides  off  into  extenuatory  matter.  He  had  not  even, 
he  protests,  made  as  much  as  a  surgical  incision  into  his 
victim  (Dr.  Richard  Mead,  the  friend  of  Bentley  and  of 
Newton,  and  a  physician  and  physiologist  of  high  repute 
in  his  day) ;  he  had  but  just  scratched  him,  and  that 
scarce  skin-deep.  As  to  the  "  droll  foible  "  of  Dr.  Mead, 
which  he  had  made  merry  with,  *'  it  was  not  first  reported 
(even  to  the  few  who  can  understand  the  hint)  by  me,  but 
known  before  by  every  chambermaid  and  footman  "within 
the  bills  of  mortality  " — a  somewhat  daring  assertion,  one 
"would  imagine,  considering  what  the  droll  foible  was ;  and 
Dr.  Mead,  continues  Sterne,  great  man  as  he  was,  had, 
after  all,  not  fared  worse  than  "a  man  of  twice  his  wis- 
dom"— to  wit  Solomon,  of  whom  the  same  remark  had 


40  STERNE.  [chap. 

been  made,  that  "  tlicy  ^vere  both  great  men,  and,  like  all 
mortal  men,  had  each  their  ruling  passion." 

The  mixture  of  banter  and  sound  reasoning  in  this  reply 
is,  no  doubt,  very  skilful.  But,  unfortunately,  neither  the 
reasoning  nor  the  banter  happens  to  meet  the  case  of  this 
particular  defiance  of  the  "  De  mortuis"  maxim,  and  as  a 
serious  defence  against  a  serious  charge  (which  was  what 
the  occasion  required)  Sterne's  answer  is  altogether  futile. 
For  the  plea  of  "  the  good  of  the  living,"  upon  which,  af- 
ter all,  the  whole  defence,  considered  seriously,  rests,  was 
quite  inapplicable  as  an  excuse  for  the  incriminated  pas- 
sage. The  only  living  persons  who  could  possibly  be  af- 
fected by  it,  for  good  or  evil,  were  those  surviving  friends 
of  the  dead  man,  to  whom  Sterne's  allusion  to  what  he 
called  Dr.  Mead's  "droll  foible"  was  calculated  to  cause 
the  deepest  pain  and  shame. 

The  other  matter  of  offence  to  Sterne's  Yorkshire  read- 
ers was  of  a  mucli  more  elaborate  kind.  In  the  person  of 
Dr.  Slop,  the  grotesque  man-midwife,  who  was  to  have  as- 
sisted, but  missed  assisting,  at  Tristram's  entry  into  the 
world,  the  good  people  of  York  were  not  slow  to  recog- 
nize the  physical  peculiarities  and  professional  antecedents 
of  Dr.  Burton,  the  local  accoucheur,  whom  Archdeacon 
Sterne  had  arrested  as  a  Jacobite.  That  the  portrait  was 
faithful  to  anything  but  the  external  traits  of  the  original, 
or  was  intended  to  reproduce  anything  more  than  these, 
Sterne  afterwards  denied ;  and  we  have  certainly  no 
ground  for  thinking  that  Burton  had  invited  ridicule  on 
any  other  than  the  somewhat  unworthy  ground  of  the 
curious  ugliness  of  his  face  and  figure.  It  is  most  unlikely 
that  his  success  as  a  practitioner  in  a  branch  of  the  med- 
ical art  in  whicli  imposture  is  the  most  easily  detected, 
could  have  been  earned  by  mere  quackery ;  and  he  seems, 


IV.]  ''TRISTRAil  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  I.  AND  II.  41 

moreover,  to  Lave  been  a  man  of  learning  in  more  kinds 
than  one.  The  probability  is  that  the  worst  that  conld 
be  alleged  against  him  was  a  tendency  to  scientific  pedan- 
try in  his  published  writings,  which  was  pretty  sure  to 
tickle  the  fancy  of  Mr.  Sterne.  Unscrupulously,  however, 
as  he  was  caricatured,  the  sensation  which  appears  to  have 
been  excited  in  the  county  by  the  burlesque  portrait  could 
hardly  have  been  due  to  any  strong  public  sympathy  with 
the  involuntary  sitter.  Dr.  Burton  seems,  as  a  suspected 
Jacobite,  to  have  been  no  special  favourite  with  the  York- 
shire squirearchy  in  general,  but  rather  the  reverse  thereof. 
Ucalegon,  however,  does  not  need  to  be  popular  to  arouse 
his  neighbour's  interest  in  his  misfortunes ;  and  the  cari- 
cature of  Burton  was  doubtless  resented  on  the  proximiis 
ardet  principle  by  many  who  feared  that  their  turn  was 
coming  next. 

To  all  the  complaints  and  protests  which  reached  him 
on  the  subject  Sterne  would  in  any  case,  probably,  have 
been  indifferent ;  but  he  was  soon  to  receive  encourage- 
ment which  would  have  more  than  repaid  a  man  of  his 
temper  for  twice  the  number  of  rebukes.  For  London 
cared  nothing  for  Yorkshire  susceptibilities  and  Yorkshire 
fears.  Provincial  notables  might  be  libelled,  and  their 
friends  might  go  in  fear  of  similar  treatment,  but  all  that 
was  nothing  to  "the  town,"  and  Tristram  Shanchj  had 
taken  the  town  by  storm.  We  gather  from  a  passage  in 
the  letter  above  quoted  that  as  early  as  January  30  the 
book  had  "  gained  the  very  favourable  opinion  "  of  Mr. 
Garrick,  afterwards  to  become  the  author's  intimate  friend ; 
and  it  is  certain  that  by  the  time  of  Sterne's  arrival  in 
London,  in  March,  1760,  Tristram  Shandy  had  become  the 
rage. 

To  say  of  this  extraordinary  work  that  it  defies  analysis 
3 


42  STERNE.  [chap. 

would  be  the  merest  inadequacy  of  commonplace.  It  was 
meant  to  defy  analysis ;  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  its 
scheme  ancl  purpose  that  it  should  do  so ;  and  the  mere 
attempt  to  subject  it  systematically  to  any  such  process 
would  argue  an  altogether  mistaken  conception  of  the 
author's  intent.  Its  full  "  official "  style  and  title  is  The 
Life  and  Opinions  of  Tristram  Shandy,  Gent.,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  say  which  it  contains  the  less  about — the 
opinions  of  Tristram  Shandy  or  the  events  of  his  life.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  its  proper  description  would  be  "  The 
Opinions  of  Tristram  Shandy's  Father,  with  some  Passages 
from  the  Life  of  his  Uncle."  Its  claim  to  be  regarded  as 
a  biography  of  its  nominal  hero  is  best  illustrated  by  the 
fact  that  Tristram  is  not  born  till  the  third  volume,  and 
not  breeched  till  the  sixth ;  that  it  is  not  till  the  seventh 
that  he  begins  to  play  any  active  part  in  the  narrative, 
appearing  then  only  as  a  completely  colourless  and  unin- 
dividualized  figure,  a  mere  vehicle  for  the  conveyance  of 
Sterne's  own  Continental  imioressions  de  voyage ;  and  that 
in  the  last  two  volumes,  which  are  entirely  taken  up  with 
the  incident  of  his  uncle's  courtship,  he  disappears  from 
the  story  altogether.  It  is  to  be  presumed,  perhaps,  though 
not  very  confidently,  that  the  reader  would  have  seen  more 
of  him  if  the  tale  had  been  continued ;  but  how  much  or 
how  little  is  quite  uncertain.  The  real  hero  of  the  book 
is  at  the  outset  Mr.  Shandy,  senior,  who  is,  later  on,  suc- 
ceeded in  this  place  of  dignity  by  my  Uncle  Toby.  It  not 
only  served  Sterne's  purpose  to  confine  himself  mainly  to 
these  two  characters,  as  the  best  whereon  to  display  his 
powers,  but  it  was  part  of  his  studied  eccentricity  to  do 
so.  It  was  a  "  point "  to  give  as  little  as  possible  about 
Tristram  Shandy  in  a  life  of  Tristram  Shandy ;  just  as  it 
was  a  point  to  keep  the  reader  waiting  throughout  the  year 


IV.]  "  TKISTRAil  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  I.  AND  11.  43 

17 GO  for  their  hero  to  be  so  much  as  born.  In  tlic  first 
vokime,  therefore,  the  author  does  literally  everything  but 
make  the  slightest  progress  with  his  story.  Starting  ofE 
abrnptly  with  a  mock  p1iysioloo;ic  disquisition  upon  the 

importanoe  of  a  proper  orrlpring  of  tlioir  mpnfnl   <;tatpg  nn 

the  part  of  the  intending  progenitors  of  children,  hc_phi- 
losophizcs  o;ravely  on  thi>^  tlipmp  for  two  or  three  chapters ; 
and  then  wanders  away  into  an  account  of  the  local  mid- 
wife, upon  whose  sole  services  AFrs.  Shandy^  in  opposit i o n 
to  her  husband,  was  inclined  to  rely.  From  the  midwife 
it  is  an  easy  transition  to  her  patron  and  protector,  the 
incumbent  of  the  parish,  and  this,  in  its  turn,  suggests  a 
logo:  excursus  onjthe  character,  habits,  appearance^  home, 
friends,  enemies,  and  finally  deaths  burial,  and^epitaph  of 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Yorick.  Thence  we  return  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Shandy,  and  are  made  acquainted,  in  absurdly  minute 
detail,  with  an  agreement  entered  into  betwppn  thom  with 
reference  to  the  pl?\pp  of  sojom-n  to  be  selected  for  the 
lady^s  accouchement,  the  bnvlesgne  deed  which  records 
this  compact  being  actually  set  out  at  full  length.  Thence, 
again,  we  are  beckoned  away  by  the  jester  to  join  him  in 
elaborate  and  not  very  edifying  ridicule  of  the  Catholic 
doctrine  of  ante-natal  baptism  ;  and  thence — but  it  would 
be  useless  to  follow  further  the  windings  and  doublings  of 
this  literary  hare. 

Yet  though  the  book,  as  one  thus  summarizes  it,  may 
appear  a  mere  farrago  of  digressions,  it  nevertheless,  after 
its  peculiar  fashion,  advances.  Sucli  definite  purpose  as 
underlies  the  tricks  and  grimaces  of  its  author  is  by  de- 
grees accomplished ;  and  before  we  reach  the  end  of  the 
first  volume  the  highly  hnmoron^j  if  extravagantly  ideaP 
ized,  figure  of  Mr.  Shandy  takes  bodily  shape  and  consist- 
cncy  before  our  eyes.     It  is  a  mistake,  I  think,  of  Sir  Wal- 


44  STERNE.  [chap. 

ter  Scott's  to  regard  the  portrait  of  this  eccentric  philoso- 
pher as  intended  for  a  satire  upon  perverted  and  deranged 
erudition — as  the  study  of  a  man  "  whom  too  much  aud 
too  miscelhmcous  learning  had  brought  within  a  step  or 
two  of  madness."  Sterne's  conception  seems  to  me  a 
little  more  subtle  and  less  commonplace  than  that.  Mr. 
Shandy,  I  imagine,  is  designed  to  personify  not  "  crack- 
brained  learning"  so  much  as  "theory  run  mad."  He  is 
possessed  by  a  sort  of  Demon  of  the  Deductive,  ever  im- 
ppl^Hncr  him  fo  pnsli  his  prnmisfsj-xwiftw  conclusions  with- 
out  ever  allowiuo-  him  timQ-to  compare  them  with  the  facts. 
No  doubt  we"  are  meant  to  regard  him  as  a  learned  man  ; 
but  his  son  gives  us  to  understand  distinctly  and  very  early 
in  the  book  that  his  crotchets  were  by  no  means  those  of 
a  weak  receptive  mind,  overladen  with  moro  knowledge 
than  it  could  digest,  but  rather  those  of  an  over-active  in- 
telligence, far  more  deeply  and  constantly  concerned  with 
its  own  processes  than  with  the  thoughts  of  others.  Tris- 
tram, indeed,  dwells  pointedly  on  the  fact  that  his  father's 
dialectical  skill  was  not  the  result  of  training,  and  that  he 
owed  nothino;  to  the  lo2:ic  of  the  schools.  "  He  was  cer- 
tainly,"  says  his  son,  "irresistible  both  in  his  orations  and 
disputations,"  but  that  was  because  "he  was  born  an  orator 
{QeodidaKToo).  Persuasion  hung  upon  his  lips,  and  the  ele- 
ments of  logic  and  rhetoric  were  so  blended  in  him,  and 
withal  he  had  so  shrewd  a  guess  at  the  weaknesses  and 
passions  of  his  respondent,  that  Nature  might  have  stood 
up  and  said,  'This  man  is  eloquent.'  And  yet,"  continues 
the  filial  panegyric, 

"He  had  never  read  Cicero  nor  Quintilian  dc  Oratore,  nor  Aristotle, 
nor  Longinus  among  the  ancients,  nor  Vossius,  nor  Skioppius,  nor 
Ramus,  nor  Farnaby  among  the  moderns :  and  -what  is  more  astonish- 
ing he  had  never  in  his  whole  life  the  least  light  or  spark  of  subtilty 


IV.]  "  TRISTRAil  SHAXDY;'  VOLS.  I.  AXD  11.  45 

struck  into  liis  mind  by  one  single  lecture  upon  Crackenthorpe  or 
Burgersdicius  or  any  Dutch  commentator :  he  knew  not  so  much  as 
in  what  the  difference  of  an  argument  ad  ignorantiam  and  an  argu- 
ment ad  hominem  consisted  ;  and  when  he  went  up  along  with  me  to 
enter  my  name  at  Jesus  College,  in  *"***,  it  was  a  matter  of  just 
wonder  with  my  worthy  tutor  and  two  or  three  Fellows  of  that  learned 
society  that  a  man  who  knew  not  so  much  as  the  names  of  his  tools 
should  be  able  to  work  after  that  fashion  with  them." 


Surely  we  all  know  men  of  this  kind,  and  the  consterna- 
tion— comparable  only  to  that  of  M.  Jourdain  under  the 
impromptu  carte -and -tierce  of  his  servant-maid  —  which 
their  sturdy  if  informal  dialectic  will  often  spread  among 
many  kinds  of  "learned  societies."  But  sucli  men  are 
certainly  not  of  the  class  which  Scott  supposed  to  have 
been  ridiculed  in  the  character  of  Walter  Shandy. 

Among  the  crotchets  of  this  born  dialectician  was  a  the- 
ory;^,a3  to  the  importance  of  Christian. names, in_determin- 
ino;  the  future  behaviour  and  destiny  of  the  children  to 
\vhom  they  are  g^iven;__aTi^;  wliqtpvpr  nrlmivtnrA  of  jest 
there  might  have  been  in  some  of  his  other  fancies,  in  this 
his  son  affirms  hp  wn=;  nb^olntply  serions.  He  solemnly 
maintained  the  opinion  "  that  there  was  a  strange  kind  of 
magic  bias  which  good  or  bad  names,  as  he  called  them, 
irresistibly  impressed  upon  our  character  and  conduct." 
How  many  Csesars  and  Pompeys,  he  would  say,  by  mere 
inspiration  of  their  names  have  been  rendered  worthy  of 
them  !  And  how  many,  he  would  add,  are  there  who  might 
have  done  exceeding  well  in  the  world  had  not  their  char- 
acters and  spirits  been  totally  depressed  and  Xicoderaus'd 
into  nothing !  He  was  astonished  at  parents  failing  to 
perceive  that  "  when  once  a  vile  name  was  wrongfully  or 
injudiciously  given,  'twas  not  like  a  case  of  a  man's  charac- 
ter, which,  when  wronged,  might  afterwards  be  cleared; 


46  STERNE.  [chap. 

and  possibly  some  time  or  other,  if  not  in  the  man's  life, 
at  least  after  his  death,  be  somehow  or  other  set  to  rights 
^Yith  the  world."  This  name-giving  injury,  he  would  say, 
"  could  never  be  undone ;  nay,  he  doubted  whether  an  Act 
of  Parliament  could  reach  it ;  he  knew,  as  well  as  you,  that 
the  Legislature  assumed  a  power  over  surnames ;  but  for 
very  strong  reasons,  which  he  could  give,  it  had  never  yet 
adventured,  he  would  say,  to  go  a  step  further." 

With  all  this  extravagance,  however,  there  was  com- 
bined an  admirable  affectation  of  sobriety.  Mr.  Shandy 
would  have  us  believe  that  he  was  no  blind  slave  to  his 
theory.  He  was  quite  willing  to  admit  the  existence  of 
names  which  could  not  affect  the  character  either  for 
good  or  evil  —  Jack,  Dick,  and  Tom,  for  instance;  and 
such  the  philosopher  styled  "  neutral  names,"  affirming  of 
them,  "  without  a  satire,  that  there  had  been  as  many 
knaves  and  fools  at  least  as  wise  and  good  men  since  the 
world  began,  who  had  indifferently  borne  them,  so  that, 
like  equal  forces  acting  against  each  other  in  contrary 
directions,  he  thought  they  mutually  destroyed  each 
other's  effects;  for  which  reason  he  would  often  declare 
he  would  not  give  a  cherry-stone  to  choose  among  them. 
Bob,  which  was  my  brother's  name,  was  another  of  these 
neutral  kinds  of  Christian  names  which  operated  very  lit- 
tle either  way ;  and  as  my  father  happened  to  be  at  Epsom 
when  it  was  given  him,  he  would  ofttimes  thank  Heaven 
it  was  no  worse."  Forewarned  of  this  peculiarity  of  Mr. 
Shandy's,  the  reader  is,  of  course,  prepared  to  hear  that  of 
all  the  names  in  the  universe  the  philosopher  had  the  most 
unconquerable  aversion  for  Tristram,  "  the  lowest  and  most 
contemptible  opinion  of  it  of  anything  in  the  world."  He 
would  break  off  in  the  midst  of  one  of  his  frequent  dis- 
putes on  the  subject  of  names,  and  "  in  a  spirited  epipho- 


ir.]  "TRISTRAM  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  I.  AXD  11.  47 

noma,  or  rather  erotesis,"  demand  of  bis  antagonist  "  ^Ylleth- 
er  he  would  take  upon  him  to  say  he  had  ever  remembered, 
whether  he  had  ever  read,  or  whether  he  had  ever  heard 
tell  of  a  man  called  Tristram  performing  anything  great  or 
worth  recording.  No,  he  would  say.  Tristram  !  the  thing 
is  impossible."  It  only  remained  that  he  should  have  pub- 
lished a  book  in  defence  of  the  belief,  and  sure  enough 
"  in  the  year  sixteen,"  two  years  before  the  birth  of  his 
second  son,  "  he  was  at  the  pains  of  writing  an  express 
dissertation  simply  upon  the  word  Tristram,  showing  the 
world  with  great  candour  and  modesty  the  grounds  of  his 
great  abhorrence  to  the  name."  And  with  this  idea  Sterne 
continues  to  amuse  himself  at  intervals  till  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

That  he  does  not  so  persistently  amuse  the  reader  it  is, 
of  course,  scarcely  necessary  to  say.  The  jest  has  not  sub- 
stance enough — few  of  Sterne's  jests  have — to  stand  the 
process  of  continual  attrition  to  which  he  subjects  it.  But 
the  mere  historic  gravity  with  which  the  various  turns  of 
this  monomania  are  recorded — to  say  nothing  of  the  sel- 
dom failing  charm  of  the  easy,  gossiping  style — prevents 
the  thing  from  ever  becoming  utterly  tiresome.  On  the 
whole,  however,  one  begins  to  grow  impatient  for  more  of 
the  same  sort  as  the  three  admirable  chapters  on  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Yorick,  and  is  not  sorry  to  get  to  the  opening  of  the 
Rpf^onrl  rolnmo,  with  its  half-tender,  half  -  humorous,  and 
xyVinVly  rlo1i'r,-1itfnL_a£iaQiint,  of  Uno.le  Toby's  flifficnlties  in 
describing;  the  siege  operations  before  Xamur^and^  of  the 
happy  chance  by  whip.h  thpso.  difficnlties  made  him  ulti- 
mately the  fortunate  possessor  of  a  "  hobby." 


ThroughoTf  tliis  volume  there  are  manifest  signs  of 
Sterne's  unceasing  interest  in  his  own  creations,  and  of  his 
increasing  consciousness  of  creative  power.    Captain  Toby 


48  STERNE.  [chap.  ly. 

Shandy  is  but  just  ligbtly  skctclied-in  iu  the  first  volume, 
while  Corporal  Trim  has  not  made  his  appearance  on  the 
scene  at  all ;  but  before  the  end  of  the  second  we  know 
both  of  them  thoroughly,  within  and  without.  Indeed,  one 
might  almost  say  that  in  the  first  half-dozen  chapters  which 
so  excellently  recount  the  oiio'in  of  the  corporal's  fortifica- 
tion  scheme,  and  the  wounded  ofiicer's  delighted  accept- 
ance of  it,  every  trait  in  the  simple  characters — alike  yet 
so  different  in  theirsiinplicity — of  master  and  of  man  be- 
comes definitely  fixed  in  the  reader's  mind.  And  the  total 
difference  between  the  second  and  the  first  volume  in  point 
of  fulness,  variety,  and  colour  is  most  marked.  The  artist, 
the  inventor,  the  master  of  dialogue,  the  comic  dramatist, 
in  fact,  as  distinct  from  the  humorous  essayist,  would  al- 
most seem  to  have  started  into  being  as  we  pass  from  the 
one  volume  to  the  other.  There  is  nothing  in  the  droll- 
eries of  the  first  volume  —  in  the  broad  jests  upo,n  Mr. 
Shandy's  crotchets,  or  even  in  the  subtler  humour  of  the 
intellectual  collision  between  these  crotchets  and  his  broth- 
er's plain  sense — to  indicate  the  kind  of  power  displayed 
in  that  remarkable  colloquy  a  quatre,  which  begins  with 
the  arrival  of  Dr.  Slop  and  ends  with  Corporal  Trim's  re- 
cital of  the  Sermon  on  Conscience.  Wit,  humour,  irony, 
quaint  learning,  shrewd  judgment  of  men  and  things,  of 
these  Sterne  had  displayed  abundance  already;  but  it  is 
not  in  the  earlier  but  in  the  later  half  of  the  first  instal- 
ment of  Tristram  Shandy  that  we  first  become  conscious 
that  he  is  something  more  than  the  possessor  of  all  these 
things ;  that  he  is  gifted  with  the  genius  of  creation,  and 
has  sent  forth  new  beings  into  that  world  of  immortal 
shadows  which  to  many  of  us  is  more  real  than  our  own. 


CHAPTER  V. 

LONDON  TRIUMPHS. — FIRST    SET    OF    SERMONS. "  TRISTRAM 

SHANDY,"     VOLS.     IIL    AND     IV. COXWOLD. VOLS.     V. 

AND    VI. FIRST    VISIT     TO    THE     CONTINENT. PARIS. 

TOULOUSE. 

(1760-1T62.) 

Sterne  aligbted  from  the  York  mail,  just  as  Byron  "awote 
one  morning',"  to  "  find  liimself  famous."  Seldom  indeed 
has  any  lion  so  suddenly  discovered  been  pursued  so  eager- 
ly and  by  such  a  distinguished  crowd  of  hunters.  The 
chase  was  remarkable  enough  to  have  left  a  lasting  im- 
pression on  the  spectators;  for  it  was  several  years  after 
(in  1773)  that  Dr.  Johnson,  by  way  of  fortifying  his  very 
just  remark  that  "any  man  who  has  a  name  or  who  has 
the  power  of  pleasing  will  be  generally  invited  in  Lon- 
don," observed  gruffly  that  "the  man  Sterne,"  he  was  told, 
"  had  had  engagements  for  three  months."  And  truly  it 
would  appear  from  abundant  evidence  that  "  the  man 
Sterne"  gained  such  a  social  triumph  as  might  well  have 
turned  a  stronger  head  than  his.  "Within  twenty-four 
hours  after  his  arrival  his  lodgings  in  Pall  Mall  were  be- 
sieged by  a  crowd  of  fashionable  visitors ;  and  in  a  few 
weeks  he  had  probably  made  the  acquaintance  of  "  every- 
body who  was  anybody  "  in  the  London  society  of  that 
day. 

now  thoroughly  he  relished  the  delights  of  celebrity  is 
3* 


50  STERNE.  [chap. 

revealed,  with  a  simple  vanity  which  almost  disarms  criti- 
cism, in  many  a  passage  of  his  correspondence.  In  one 
of  his  earliest  letters  to  Miss  Fourmantelle  we  find  him 
proudly  relating  to  her  how  already  he  "was  engaged  to 
ten  noblemen  and  men  of  fashion."  Of  Garrick,  who  had 
warmly  welcomed  the  humourist  who:e  merits  he  had  been 
the  first  to  discover,  Sterne  says  that  he  had  "  promised 
him  at  dinner  to  numbers  of  great  people."  Amongst 
these  great  people  who  sought  him  out  for  themselves 
was  that  discerning  patron  of  ability  in  every  shape,  Lord 
Rockingham.  In  one  of  the  many  letters  which  Madame 
de  Mcdalle  flung  dateless  upon  the  world,  but  which  from 
internal  evidence  we  can  assign  to  the  early  months  of 
1760,  Sterne  writes  that  he  is  about  to  "set  off  with  a 
grand  retinue  of  Lord  Rockingham's  (in  whose  suite  I 
move)  for  Windsor"  to  witness,  it  should  seem,  an  instal- 
lation of  a  Knight  of  the  Garter.  It  is  in  his  letters  to 
Miss  Fourmantelle,  however,  that  his  almost  boyish  exulta- 
tion at  his  London  triumph  discloses  itself  most  frankly. 
"  My  rooms,"  he  writes,  "  are  filling  every  hour  with  great 
people  of  the  first  rank,  who  strive  who  shall  most  honour 
me."  Never,  he  believes,  had  such  homage  been  rendered 
to  any  man  by  devotees  so  distinguished.  "  The  honours 
paid  me  were  the  greatest  that  w^ere  ever  known  from  the 
great." 

The  self-painted  portrait  is  not,  it  must  be  confessed, 
altoo-ethcr  an  attractive  one.  It  is  somewhat  wantino-  in 
dignity,  and  its  air  of  over-inflated  complacency  is  at  times 
slightly  ridiculous.  But  we  must  not  judge  Sterne  in  this 
matter  by  too  severe  a  standard.  He  was  by  nature  nei- 
ther a  dignified  nor  a  self-contained  man  :  he  had  a  head 
particularly  unfitted  to  stand  sudden  elevation  ;  and  it  must 
,bc  allowed  that  few  men's  power  of  resisting  giddiness  at 


v.]  LONDON  TRIUMPHS.  51 

previously  unexplored  altitudes  ^Yas  ever  so  severely  tried. 
It  was  not  only  "  the  2;reat "  in  the  sense  of  the  higli  in 
rank  and  social  distinction  by  "svhom  he  was  courted ;  he 
was  welcomed  also  by  the  eminent  in  genius  and  learning ; 
and  it  would  be  no  very  difficult  task  for  him  to  flatter 
himself  that  it  was  the  latter  form  of  recognition  which 
he  really  valued  most.  Much,  at  any  rate,  in  the  way  of 
undue  elation  may  be  forgiven  to  a  country  clergyman 
who  suddenly  found  himself  the  centre  of  a  court,  which 
was  regularly  attended  by  statesmen,  wits,  and  leaders  of 
fashion,  and  with  whom  even  bishops  condescended  to 
open  gracious  diplomatic  communication.  "Even  all  the 
bishops,"  he  writes,  "  have  sent  their  compliments ;"  and 
though  this  can  hardly  have  been  true  of  the  whole  Epis- 
copal Bench,  it  is  certain  that  Sterne  received  something 
more  than  a  compliment  from  one  bishop,  who  was  a  host 
in  himself.  He  was  introduced  by  Garrick  to  Warburton, 
and  received  high  encouragement  from  that  formidable 
prelate.^ 

The  year  1760,  however,  was  to  bring  to  Sterne  more 
solid  gains  than  that  of  mere  celebrity,  or  even  than  the 
somewhat  precarious  money  profits  which  depend  on  lit- 
erary vogue.  Only  a  few  weeks  after  his  arrival  in  town 
he  was  presented  by  Lord  Falconberg  with  the  curacy  of 
Coxwold,  "a  sweet  retirement,"  as  he  describes  it,  "in 
comparison  of  Sutton,"  at  which  he  was  in  future  to  pass 
most  of  the  time  spent  by  him  in  Yorkshire.  What  ob- 
tained him  this  piece  of  preferment  is  unknown.  It  may 
be  that  Tristram  Shanchj  drew^  the  Yorkshire  peer's  atten- 

^  It  is  admitted,  moreover,  in  the  correspondence  with  Miss  Four- 
mantelle  that  Sterne  received  something  more  substantial  from  the 
Bishop,  in  the  shape  of  a  purse  of  gold ;  and  this  strange  present 
gave  rise  to  a  scandal  on  which  something  will  be  said  hereafter. 


52  STERNE.  [chap. 

tion  to  the  fact  that  there  "was  a  Yorkslnreman  of  genius 
living  within  a  few  miles  of  a  then  vacant  benefice  in  his 
lordship's  gift,  and  that  this  was  enough  for  him.  But 
Sterne  himself  says — in  writing  a  year  or  so  afterwards  to 
a  lady  of  his  acquaintance — "  I  hope  I  have  been  of  some 
service  to  his  lordship,  and  he  has  sufficiently  requited  me;" 
and  in  the  face  of  this  plain  assertion,  confirmed  as  it  is  by 
the  fact  that  Lord  Falconberg  was  on  terms  of  friendly  in- 
timacy Avith  the  Vicar  of  Coxwold  at  a  much  later  date 
than  this,  we  may  dismiss  idle  tales  about  Sterne's  having 
"  black-mailed  "  the  patron  out  of  a  presentation  to  a  ben- 
efice worth  no  more,  after  all,  than  some  701.  a  year  net. 

There  is  somewhat  more  substance,  however,  in  the 
scandal  which  got  abroad  with  reference  to  a  certain  al- 
leged transaction  between  Sterne  and  Warburton.  Be- 
fore Sterne  had  been  many  days  in  London,  and  while 
yet  his  person  and  doings  were  the  natural  subjects  of  the 
newest  gossip,  a  story  found  its  way  into  currency  to  the 
effect  that  the  new-made  Bishop  of  Gloucester  had  found 
it  advisable  to  protect  himself  against  the  satiric  humour 
of  the  author  of  the  Trhtram  Shanchj  by  a  substantial 
present  of  money.  Coming  to  Garrick's  ears,  it  w^as  re- 
peated by  him — whether  seriously  or  in  jest — to  Sterne, 
from  whom  it  evoked  a  curious  letter,  which  in  Madame 
de  Medalle's  collection  has  been  studiously  hidden  away 
amongst  the  correspondence  of  seven  years  later.  "  'Twas 
for  all  the  world,"  he  began,  "  like  a  cut  across  my  finger 
with  a  sharp  pen-knife.  I  saw  the  blood — gave  it  a  suck, 
wrapt  it  np,  and  thought  no  more  about  it.  .  .  .  The  story 
you  told  me  of  Tristram's  pretended  tutor  this  morning" 
— (the  scandal  was,  that  Warburton  had  been  threatened 
with  caricature  in  the  next  volume  of  the  novel,  under  the 
guise  of  the  hero's  tutor) — "  this  vile  story,  I  say,  though 


v.]  LONDON  TRIUMPHS.  53 

I  then  saw  both  how  and  where  it  wounded,  I  felt  little 
from  it  at  first,  or,  to  speak  more  honestly  (though  it  ruins 
my  simile),  I  felt  a  great  deal  of  pain  from  it,  but  affected 
an  air,  usual  in  such  accidents,  of  feeling  less  than  I  had." 
And  he  goes  on  to  repudiate,  it  will  be  observed,  not  so 
much  the  moral  offence  of  corruption,  in  receiving  money 
to  spare  Warburton,  as  the  intellectual  solecism  of  select- 
ing him  for  ridicule.  "  AYhat  the  devil !"  he  exclaims,  "  is 
there  no  one  learned  blockhead  throughout  the  schools  of 
misapplied  science  in  the  Christian  world  to  make  a  tutor 
of  for  my  Tristram — are  we  so  run  out  of  stock  that  there 
is  no  one  lumber-headed,  muddle-headed,  mortar-headed, 
pudding-head  chap  amongst  our  doctors  .  .  .  but  I  must 
disable  my  judgment  by  choosing  a  AVarburton  ?"  Later 
on,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Croft,  at  Stillington,  whom 
the  scandal  had  reached  through  a  "  society  journal "  of 
the  time,  he  asks  whether  people  would  suppose  he  would 
be  "  such  a  fool  as  to  fall  foul  of  Dr.  AVarburton,  my  best 
friend,  by  representing  him  so  weak  a  man ;  or  by  telling 
such  a  lie  of  him  as  his  giving  me  a  purse  to  buy  off  the 
tutorship  of  Tristram — or  that  I  should  be  fool  enough  to 
own  that  I  had  taken  a  purse  for  that  purpose?"  It  will 
be  remarked  that  Sterne  does  not  here  deny  having  re- 
ceived a  purse  from  Warburton,  but  only  his  having  re- 
ceived it  by  way  of  black-mail :  and  the  most  mysterious 
part  of  the  affair  is  that  Sterne  did  actually  receive  the 
strange  present  of  a  "  purse  of  gold "  from  Warburton 
(whom  at  that  time  he  did  not  know^  nor  had  ever  seen) ; 
and  that  he  admits  as  much  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Miss 
Fourmantelle.  "I  had  a  purse  of  guineas  giv^n  me  yes- 
terday by  a  Bishop,"  he  writes,  triumphantly,  but  without 
volunteering  any  explanation  of  this  extraordinary  gift. 
Sterne's  letter  to  Garrick  was  forwarded,  it  would  seem,  to 


54  STERNE.  [chap. 

Warburton ;  and  the  Bisliop  thanks  Garrick  for  having 
procured  for  him  "  the  confutation  of  an  impertinent  story 
the  first  moment  I  heard  of  it."  This,  liowcvcr,  can  hard- 
ly count  for  much.  If  Warburton  liad  really  wished  Sterne 
to  abstain  from  caricaturing  him,  he  would  be  as  anxious — 
and  for  much  the  same  reasons — to  conceal  the  fact  as  to 
suppress  the  caricature.  He  would  naturally  have  the  dis- 
closure of  it  reported  to  Sterne  for  formal  contradiction, 
as  in  fulfilment  of  a  virtual  term  in  the  bargain  between 
them.  The  epithet  of  "  irrevocable  scoundrel,"  which  he 
afterwards  applied  to  Sterne,  is  of  less  importance,  as  pro- 
ceeding from  Warburton,  than  it  would  have  been  had  it 
come  from  any  one  not  habitually  employing  Warburton's 
peculiar  vocabulary ;  but  it  at  least  argues  no  very  cordial 
feeling  on  the  Bishop's  side.  And,  on  the  whole,  one  re- 
grets to  feel,  as  I  must  honestly  confess  that  I  do  feel,  far 
less  confident  of  the  groundlessness  of  this  rather  unpleas- 
ant story  than  could  be  wished.  It  is  impossible  to  for- 
get, however,  that  while  the  ethics  of  this  matter  were  un- 
doubtedly less  strict  in  those  days  than  they  are — or,  at 
any  rate,  are  recognized  as  being  —  in  our  own,  there  is 
nothing  in  Sterne's  character  to  make  us  suppose  him  to 
have  been  at  all  in  advance  of  the  morality  of  his  time. 

The  incumbent-designate  did  not  go  down  at  once  to 
take  possession  of  his  temporalities.  His  London  triumph 
had  not  yet  run  its  course.  The  first  edition  of  Vols.  I. 
and  II.  of  Tristram  Shandy  was  exhausted  in  some  three 
months.  In  April,  Dodsley  brought  out  a  second ;  and, 
concurrently  with  the  advertisement  of  its  issue,  there  ap- 
peared—  in  somewhat  incongruous  companionship  —  the 
announcement,  "  Speedily  will  be  published.  The  Sermons 
of  Mr.  Yorick."  The  judicious  Dodsley,  or  possibly  the 
judicious  Sterne  himself  (acute  enough  in  matters  of  this 


v.]  FIRST  SET  OF  SERMOXS.  55 

kind),  Lad  perceived  that  now  was  the  time  to  publish  a 
series  of  sermons  by  the  very  unclerical  lion  of  the  day. 
There  would — they,  no  doubt,  thought — be  an  undeniable 
piquancy,  a  distinct  flavour  of  semi-scandalous  incongruity 
in  listening  to  the  Word  of  Life  from  the  lips  of  this  loose- 
tongued  droll ;  and  the  more  staid  and  serious  the  sermon, 
the  more  effective  the  contrast.  There  need  not  have  been 
much  trouble  in  finding  the  kind  of  article  required ;  and 
we  may  be  tolerably  sure  that,  even  if  Sterne  did  not  per- 
ceive that  fact  for  himself,  his  publisher  hastened  to  inform 
him  that  "  anything  would  do."  Two  of  his  pulpit  dis- 
courses, the  Assize  Sermon  and  the  Charity  Sermon,  had 
already  been  thought  worthy  of  publication  by  their  au- 
thor in  a  separate  form ;  and  the  latter  of  these  found  a 
place  in  the  series ;  while  the  rest  seem  to  have  been  sim- 
ply the  chance  sweepings  of  the  parson's  sermon-drawer. 
The  critics  who  find  wit,  eccentricity,  flashes  of  Shandy- 
ism,  and  what  not  else  of  the  same  sort  in  these  discourses, 
must  be  able — or  so  it  seems  to  me — to  discover  these 
phenomena  anywhere.  To  the  best  of  my  own  judgment 
the  Sermons  are — with  but  few  and  partial  exceptions — 
of  the  most  commonplace  character  ;  platitudinous  with 
the  platitudes  of  a  thousand  pulpits,  and  insipid  with  the 
cramhe  repetita  of  a  hundred  thousand  homilies.  A  single 
extract  will  fully  suflBce  for  a  specimen  of  Sterne's  pre- 
Shandian  homiletic  style;  his  post-Shandian  manner  was 
very  different,  as  we  shall  see.  The  preacher  is  discours- 
ing upon  the  well-worn  subject  of  the  inconsistencies  of 
human  character : 

"  If  such  a  contrast  was  only  observable  in  the  different  stages  of 
a  man's  life,  it  v,ould  cease  to  be  either  a  matter  of  wonder  or  of 
just  reproach.  Age,  experience,  and  much  reflection  may  naturally 
enough  be  supposed  to  alter  a  man's  sense  of  things,  and  so  entirely 


5G  STERXE.  [chap. 

to  transform  him  that,  not  only  in  outward  appearance  but  in  the 
very  cast  and  turn  of  his  mind,  he  may  be  as  unlike  and  different 
from  the  man  he  was  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  as  he  ever  was  from 
anything  of  his  own  species.  This,  I  say,  is  naturally  to  be  account- 
ed for,  and  in  some  cases  might  be  praiseworthy  too ;  but  the  obser- 
vation is  to  be  made  of  men  in  the  same  period  of  their  lives  that  in 
the  same  day,  sometimes  on  the  very  same  action,  they  are  utterly  in- 
consistent and  irreconcilable  with  themselves.  Look  at  the  man  in  one 
light,  and  he  shall  seem  wise,  penetrating,  discreet,  and  brave;  behold 
him  in  another  point  of  view,  and  you  see  a  creature  all  over  folly 
and  indiscretion,  weak  and  timorous  as  cowardice  and  indiscretion 
can  make  him.  A  man  shall  appear  gentle,  courteous,  and  benevo- 
lent to  all  mankind ;  follow  hira  into  his  own  house,  maybe  you  see 
a  tyrant  morose  and  savage  to  all  whose  happiness  depends  upon  his 
kindness.  A  third,  in  his  general  behaviour,  is  found  to  be  gener- 
ous, disinterested,  humane,  and  friendly.  Hear  but  the  sad  story  of 
the  friendless  orphans  too  credulously  trusting  all  their  whole  sub- 
stance into  his  hands,  and  he  shall  appear  more  sordid,  more  pitiless 
and  unjust  than  the  injured  themselves  have  bitterness  to  paint  him. 
Another  shall  be  charitable  to  the  poor,  uncharitable  in  his  censures 
and  opinions  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world  besides :  temperate  in  his 
appetites,  intemperate  in  his  tongue ;  shall  have  too  much  conscience 
and  religion  to  cheat  the  man  who  trusts  him,  and  perhaps  as  far  as 
the  business  of  debtor  and  creditor  extends  shall  be  just  and  scrupu- 
lous to  the  uttermost  mite ;  yet  in  matters  of  full  or  great  concern, 
where  he  is  to  have  the  handling  of  the  party's  reputation  and  good 
name,  the  dearest,  the  tenderest  property  the  man  has,  he  will  do  him 
irreparable  damage,  and  rob  him  there  without  measure  or  pity." — 
Sermon  XI. —  On  Evil  Speaking. 

There  is  clearly  nothing  particularly  striking  in  all  that, 
even  conveyed  as  it  is  in  Sterne's  effective,  if  loose  and 
careless,  style ;  and  it  is  no  unfair  sample  of  the  whole. 
The  calculation,  however,  of  the  author  and  his  shrewd 
publisher  was  that,  whatever  the  intrinsic  merits  or  de- 
merits of  these  sermons,  they  would  "take"  on  the  strength 
of  the  author's  name ;  nor,  it  would  seem,  was  their  calcu- 
lation disappointed.    The  edition  of  this  series  of  sermons 


T.]  FIRST  SET  OF  SERMONS.  51 

now  lying  before  me  is  numbered  the  sixth,  and  its  date 
is  1*764;  which  represents  a  demand  for  a  new  edition 
every  nine  months  or  so,  over  a  space  of  four  years.  They 
may,  perhaps,  have  succeeded,  too,  in  partially  reconciling  a 
certain  serious-minded  portion  of  the  public  to  the  author. 
Sterne  evidently  hoped  that  they  might ;  for  we  find  him 
sending  a  copy  to  AYarburton,  in  the  month  of  June,  im- 
mediately after  the  publicatron  of  the  book,  and  receiving 
in  return  a  letter  of  courteous  thanks,  and  full  of  excellent 
advice  as  to  the  expediency  of  avoiding  scandal  by  too 
hazardous  a  style  of  writing  in  the  future.  Sterne,  in  re- 
ply, protests  that  he  would  "  willingly  give  no  offence  to 
mortal  by  anything  which  could  look  like  the  least  viola- 
tion of  either  decency  or  good  manners;"  but — and  it  is 
an  important  "but" — he  cannot  promise  to  "mutilate  ev- 
erything "  in  Tristram  "  down  to  the  prudish  humour  of 
every  particular  "  (individual),  though  he  will  do  his  best ; 
but,  in  any  case,  "laugh,  my  Lord,  I  will,  and  as  loudly  as 
I  can."  And  laugh  he  did,  and  in  such  Rabelaisian  fashion 
that  the  Bishop  (somewhat  inconsistently  for  a  critic  who 
had  welcomed  Sterne  on  the  appearance  of  the  first  two 
volumes  expressly  as  the  "English  Rabelais")  remarked 
of  him  afterwards  with  characteristic  vigour,  in  a  letter 
to  a  friend,  that  he  fears  the  fellow  is  an  "  irrevocable 
scoundrel." 

The  volumes,  however,  which  earned  "  the  fellow  "  this 
Episcopal  benediction  were  not  given  to  the  world  till  the 
next  year.  At  the  end  of  May  or  beginning  of  June,  1 760, 
Sterne  went  to  his  new  home  at  Coxwold,  and  his  letters 
soon  begin  to  show  him  to  us  at  work  upon  further  records 
of  Mr.  Shandy's  philosophical  theory  -  spinning  and  the 
simpler  pursuits  of  his  excellent  brother.  It  is  probable 
tliat  this  year,  1760,  was,  on  the  whole,  the  happiest  year 


58  STERNE.  [chap. 

of  Sterne's  life.  His  health,  though  always  feeble,  had 
not  yet  finally  given  way ;  and  though  the  "  vile  cough  " 
which  was  to  bring  him  more  than  once  to  death's  door, 
and  at  last  to  force  it  open,  was  already  troubling  him,  he 
had  that  within  him  which  made  it  easy  to  bear  up 
against  all  such  physical  ills.  His  spirits,  in  fact,  were  at 
their  highest.  Ilis  worldly  affairs  were  going  at  least  as 
smoothly  as  they  ever  went,  lie  was  basking  in  that 
sunshine  of  fame  which  was  so  delightful  to  a  tempera- 
ment differino-  from  that  of  the  averao;e  Eno-lishman,  as 
does  the  physique  of  the  Southern  races  from  that  of  the 
hardier  children  of  the  North ;  and  lastly,  he  was  exulting 
in  a  new-born  sense  of  creative  power  which  no  doubt 
made  the  composition  of  the  earlier  volumes  of  Tristram 
a  veritable  labour  of  love. 

But  the  witty  division  of  literary  spinners  into  silk- 
worms and  spiders — those  who  spin  because  they  are  full, 
and  those  who  do  so  because  they  are  empty — is  not 
exhaustive.  There  are  human  silk-worms  who  become 
gradually  transformed  into  spiders — men  who  begin  writ- 
ing in  order  to  unburden  a  full  imagination,  and  who, 
long  after  that  process  has  been  completely  performed, 
continue  writing  in  order  to  fill  an  empty  belly;  and 
though  Sterne  did  not  live  long  enough  to  "  write  himself 
ont,"  there  are  certain  indications  that  he  would  not  have 
left  off  writing  if  and  when  he  felt  that  this  stage  of 
exhaustion  had  arrived.  His  artistic  impulses  were  curi- 
ously combined  with  a  distinct  admixture  of  the  "  pot- 
boiler "  spirit ;  and  it  was  with  something  of  the  compla- 
cency of  an  annuitant  that  he  looked  forward  to  giving 
the  public  a  couple  of  volumes  of  Tristram  Shandy/  every 
year  as  long  as  they  would  stand  it.  In  these  early  days, 
however,  there  was  no  necessity  even  to  discuss  the  prob- 


v.]  "TRISTRAM  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  III.  AXD  IV.  59 

able  period  either  of  the  \vriter'3  inspiration  or  of  the 
reader's  appetite.  At  present  the  public  were  as  eager  to 
consume  more  Shandyism  as  Sterne  was  ready  to  produce 
it :  the  demand  was  as  active  as  the  supply  was  easy.  Bj; 
the  end  of  the  year  Vols.  III.  and  IV.  were  in  the  press^ 
and  on  January  27,  1761,  they  made  their  appearance* 
They  had  been  disposed  of  in  advance  to  Dodsley  for  380/. 
— no  bad  terms  of  remuneration  in  those  days ;  but  it  is 
still  likely  enough  that  the  publisher  made  a  profitable 
bargain.  The  new  volumes  sold  freely,  and  the  public 
laughed  at  them  as  heartily  as  their  two  predecessors. 
Their  author's  vogue  inJLondon,  whither  he  went  in  De- 
cember, 17G0,  to  superintend  publication,  was  as  great 
during  the  next  spring  as  it  had  been  in  the  last.  The 
tide  of  visitors  again  set  in  in  all  its  former  force  and 
volume  towards  the  "genteel  lodgings."  Ilis  dinner  list 
was  once  more  full,  and  he  was  feasted  and  flattered  by 
wits,  beaux,  courtiers,  politicians,  and  titled- lady  lion- 
hunters  as  sedulously  as  ever.  His  letters,  especially  those 
to  his  friends  the  Crofts,  of  Stillington,  abound,  as  before, 
in  touches  of  the  same  amusing  vanity.  "With  how  de- 
licious a  sense  of  self-importance  must  he  have  written 
these  words :  "  You  made  me  and  my  friends  very  merry 
with  the  accounts  current  at  York  of  my  being  forbad  the 
Court,  but  they  do  not  consider  what  a  considerable  per- 
son they  make  of  me  when  they  suppose  either  my  going 
or  not  going  there  is  a  point  that  ever  enters  the  K.'s 
head ;  and  for  those  about  him,  I  have  the  honour  either 
to  stand  so  personally  well-known  to  them,  or  to  be  so 
well  represented  by  those  of  the  first  rank,  as  to  fear  no 
accident  of  the  kind."  Amusing,  too,  is  it  to  note 
the  familiarity,  as  of  an  old  habitue  of  Ministerial  ante- 
chambers, with  which  this  country  parson  discusses  the 


60  STERNE.  [chap. 

political  changes  of  tliat  interesting  year ;  tlioiigli  scarcely 
more  amusing,  perhaps,  than  the  solemnity  with  which  his 
daughter  disguises  the  identity  of  the  new  Premier  under 

the  title  B e ;  and  by  a  similar  use  of  initials  attempts 

to  conceal  the  momentous  state  secret  that  the  D.  of  R. 
had  been  removed  from  the  place  of  Groom  of  the  Cham- 
bers, and  that  Sir  F.  D.  had  succeeded  T.  as  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer.  Occasionally,  however,  the  interest  of  his 
letters  changes  from  personal  to  public,  and  we  get  a 
glimpse  of  scenes  and  personages  that  have  become  his- 
torical. He  was  present  in  the  House  of  Commons  at  the 
first  grand  debate  on  the  German  war  after  the  Great 
Commoner's  retirement  from  office — "  the  pitched  battle," 
as  Sterne  calls  it,  "  wherein  Mr.  P.  was  to  have  entered  and 
thrown  down  the  gauntlet"  in  defence  of  his  military 
policy.     Thus  he  describes  it : 

"  There  never  was  so  full  a  House — the  gallery  full  to  the  top — I 
was  there  all  the  day ;  when  lo  !  a  political  fit  of  the  gout  seized  the 
great  combatant — he  entered  not  the  lists,  Beckford  got  up  and 
begged  the  House,  as  he  saw  not  his  right  honourable  friend  there, 
to  put  off  the  debate — it  could  not  be  done :  so  Beckford  rose  up 
and  made  a  most  long,  passionate,  incoherent  speech  in  defence  of 
the  German  war,  but  very  severe  upon  the  unf rugal  manner  it  was 
carried  on,  in  which  he  addressed  himself  principally  to  the  C[hau- 
cellor]  of  the  E[xchequer],  and  laid  on  him  terribly,  .  ,  .  Legge 
answered  Beckford  very  rationally  and  coolly.  Lord  X.  spoke  long. 
Sir  F.  D[ashwood]  maintained  the  German  v/ar  was  most  perni- 
cious. .  .  .  Lord  B[arrington]  at  last  got  up  and  spoke  half  an  hour 
with  great  plainness  and  temper,  explained  many  hidden  things  re- 
lating to  these  accounts  in  favour  of  the  late  K.,  and  told  two  or 
three  conversations  which  had  passed  between  the  K.  and  himself 
relative  to  these  expenses,  which  cast  great  honour  upon  the  K.'s 
character.  This  was  with  regard  to  the  money  the  K.  had  secretly 
furnished  out  of  his  own  pocket  to  lessen  the  account  of  the  Han- 
over-score  brought  us   to   discharge.      Beckford    and    Barrington 


v.]  COX^YOLD. 

abused  all  who  fought  for  peace  and  joii? 
and  Beckford  added  that  the  reasons  of  wisl 
the  same  as  at  the  Peace  of  Utrecht — that  the' 
curtain  could  not  both  maintain  the  war  and  their' 
were  for  making  another  sacrifice  of  the  nation  to  their  own  Inter- 
ests. After  all,  the  cry  for  a  peace  is  so  general  that  it  will  cer- 
tainly end  in  one." 

And  tlien  the  letter,  recurring  to  personal  matters  to- 
wards the  close,  records  the  success  of  Vols.  III.  and  lY. : 
"  One  half  of  the  town  abuse  my  book  as  bitterly  as  the  oth- 
er half  cry  it  up  to  the  skies — the  best  is  they  abuse  and 
buy  it,  and  at  such  a  rate  that  we  are  going  on  with  a  sec- 
ond edition  as  fast  as  possible."  This  was  written  only  in 
the  first  week  of  March,  so  that  the  edition  must  have  been 
exhausted  in  little  more  than  a  month.  It  was,  indeed, 
another  triumph ;  and  all  through  this  spring  up  to  mid- 
summer did  Sterne  remain  in  London  to  enjoy  it.  But, 
w  ith  three  distinct  flocks  awaiting  a  renewal  of  his  pastoral 
ministrations  in  Ycrkshh*e,  it  would  scarcely  have  done  for 
him,  even  in  those  easy-going  days  of  the  Establishment, 
to  take  up  his  permanent  abode  at  the  capital ;  and  early 
in  July  he  returned  to  Coxwold. 

From  the  middle  of  this  year,  17G1,  the  scene  begins  to 
darken,  and  from  the  beginning  of  the  next  year  onward 
Sterne's  life  was  little  better  than  a  truccless  struggle  with 
the  disease  to  which  he  was  destined,  prematurely,  to  suc- 
cumb. The  wretched  constitution  which,  in  common  with 
bis  short-lived  brothers  and  sisters,  he  had  inherited  proba- 
bly from  his  father,  already  began  to  show  signs  of  break- 
ing up.  Invalid  from  the  first,  it  had  doubtless  been  weak- 
ened by  the  hardships  of  Sterne's  early  years,  and  yet 
further,  perhaps,  by  the  excitements  and  dissipations  of 
his  London  life ;  nor  was  the  change  from  the  gaieties  of 


62  STERNE.  [chap. 

the  capital  to  hard  literary  labour  in  a  country  parsonage 
calculated  to  benefit  him  as  ranch  as  it  raight  others. 
Shandy  Hall,  as  he  christened  his  pretty  parsonage  at  Cox- 
wold,  and  as  the  house,  still  standing,  is  called  to  this  day, 
soon  became  irksome  to  him.  The  very  reaction  begotten 
of  unwonted  quietude  acted  on  his  temperament  with  a 
dispiriting  rather  than  a  soothing  effect.  The  change 
from  his  full  and  stimulating  life  in  London  to  the  dull 
round  of  clerical  duties  in  a  Yorkshire  village  might  well 
have  been  depressing  to  a  mind  better  balanced  and  bal- 
lasted than  his.  To  him,  with  his  light,  pleasure -loving 
nature,  it  was  as  the  return  of  the  schoolboy  from  panto- 
mimes and  pony-riding  to  the  more  sober  delights  of  Dr. 
Swishtail's ;  and,  in  a  letter  to  Hall  Stevenson,  Sterne  re- 
veals his  feelings  with  all  the  juvenile  frankness  of  one  of 
the  Doctor's  pupils : 

"  I  rejoice  you  are  in  London — rest  you  there  in  peace  ;  here  'tis  the 
devil.  You  Avere  a  good  prophet.  I  wish  myself  back  again,  as  you 
told  me  I  should,  but  not  because  a  thin,  death -doing,  pestiferous 
north-east  wind  blows  in  a  line  directly  from  Crazy  Castle  turret 
fresh  upon  me  in  this  cuckoldly  retreat  (for  I  value  the  north-east 
wind  and  all  its  powers  not  a  straw),  but  the  transition  from  rapid 
motion  to  absolute  rest  was  too  violent.  I  should  have  walked  about 
the  streets  of  York  ten  days,  as  a  proper  medium  to  have  passed 
through  before  I  entered  upon  ray  rest ;  I  stayed  but  a  moment,  and 
I  have  been  here  but  a  few,  to  satisfy  me.  I  have  not  managed  my 
miseries  like  a  wise  man,  and  if  God  for  my  consolation  had  not 
poured  forth  the  spirit  of  Shandyism  unto  me,  which  will  not  suffer 
me  to  think  two  moments  upon  any  grave  subject,  I  would  else  just 
now  lay  down  and  die." 

It  is  true  he  adds,  in  the  next  sentence,  that  in  half  an 
hour's  time  "  Til  lay  a  guinea  I  shall  be  as  merry  as  a 
monkey,  and  forget  it  all,"  but  such  sudden  revulsions  of 
high  spirits  can   hardly   be  allowed  to  count  for  much 


v.]  COXWOLD.  63 

against  the  prevailing  tone  of  discontented  ennui  wliich 
pervades  this  letter. 

Apart,  moreover,  from  Sterne's  regrets  of  London,  his 
country  home  was  becoming  from  other  causes  a  less  pleas- 
ant place  of  abode.  His  relations  ^vith  his  \vife  were  get- 
ting less  and  less  cordial  every  year.  "With  a  perversity 
sometimes  noticeable  in  the  wives  of  distinguished  men, 
Mrs.  Sterne  had  failed  to  accept  with  enthusiasm  the  role 
of  distant  and  humbly  admiring  spectator  of  her  brilliant 
husband's  triumphs.  Accept  it,  of  course,  she  did,  being 
unable,  indeed,  to  help  herself ;  but  it  is  clear  that  when 
Sterne  returned  home  after  one  of  his  six  months'  revels 
in  the  gaieties  of  London,  his  wife,  who  had  been  vege- 
tating the  while  in  the  retirement  of  Yorkshire,  was  not  in 
the  habit  of  welcomino;  him  with  effusion.  Perceivino;  so 
clearly  that  her  husband  preferred  the  world's  society  to 
hers,  she  naturally,  perhaps,  refused  to  disguise  her  prefer- 
ence of  her  own  society  to  his.  Their  estrangement,  in 
short,  had  gTown  apace,  and  had  already  brought  them  to 
that  stage  of  mutual  indifference  which  is  at  once  so  com- 
fortable and  so  hopeless — secure  alike  against  the  risk  of 
"scenes"  and  the  hope  of  reconciliation,  shut  fast  in  its 
exemption  from  amantium  tree  against  all  possibility  of 
redintegratio  amoris.  To  such  perfection,  indeed,  had  the 
feeling  been  cultivated  on  both  sides,  that  Sterne,  in  the 
letter  above  quoted,  can  write  of  his  conjugal  relations  in 
this  philosophic  strain : 

"As  to  matrimony  I  should  be  a  beast  to  rail  at  it,  for  my  -u-ife  is 
easy,  but  the  world  is  not,  and  had  I  stayed  from  her  a  second  long- 
er it  would  have  been  a  burning  shame — else  she  declares  herself 
happier  without  me.  But  not  in  anger  is  this  declaration  made  (the 
most  fatal  point,  of  course,  about  it),  but  in  pure,  sober,  good  sense, 
built  on  sound  experience.     She  hopes  you  will  be  able  to  strike  a 


64  STERNE  [chap. 

bargain  for  mc  before  this  twelvemonth  to  lead  a  bear  round  Eu- 
rope, and  from  this  hope  from  you  I  verily  believe  it  is  that  you  are 
so  high  in  her  favour  at  present.  She  swears  you  are  a  fellow  of  wit, 
though  humorous  ;^  a  funny,  jolly  soul,  though  somewhat  splenetic, 
and  (bating  the  love  of  women)  as  honest  as  gold.  IIow  do  you 
like  the  simile  ?" 

There  is,  perhaps,  a  toucli  of  affected  cynicism  in  the 
suggestion  that  Mrs.  Sterne's  liking  for  one  of  her  hus- 
band's friends  was  wholly  based  upon  the  expectation 
that  he  would  rid  her  of  her  husband ;  but  mutual  indif- 
ference must,  it  is  clear,  have  reached  a  pretty  advanced 
stage  before  such  a  remark  could,  even  half  in  jest,  be 
possible.  And  with  one  more  longing,  lingering  look  at 
the  scenes  which  he  had  quitted  for  a  lot  like  that  of 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham's  dog,  upon  whom  his  master 
pronounced  the  maledictory  wish  that  "he  were  married 
and  lived  in  the  country,"  this  characteristic  letter  con- 
cludes : 

"Oh,  Lord !  now  are  you  going  to  Ranelagh  to-night,  and  I  am  sit- 
ting sorrowful  as  the  prophet  was  when  the  voice  cried  out  to  him 
and  said,  '  What  do'st  thou  here,  Elijah  ?'  'Tis  well  that  the  spirit 
does  not  make  the  same  at  Coxwold,  for  unless  for  the  few  sheep 
left  me  to  take  care  of  in  the  wilderness,  I  might  as  well,  nay,  better, 
be  at  Mecca.  "When  we  find  we  can,  by  a  shifting  of  j^laces,  run 
away  from  ourselves,  what  think  you  of  a  jaunt  there  before  w^e 
finally  pay  a  visit  to  the  Yale  of  Jehoshaphat  ?  As  ill  a  fame  as  we 
have,  I  trust  I  shall  one  day  or  other  see  you  face  to  face,  so  tell  the 
two  colonels  if  they  love  good  company  to  live  righteously  and  so- 
berly, as  you  do,  and  then  they  will  have  no  doubts  or  dangers  within 

^  It  is  curious  to  note,  as  a  point  in  the  chronology  of  language, 
how  exclusive  is  Sterne's  employment  of  the  words  "humour,"  "hu- 
mourists," in  their  older  sense  of  "  whimsicality,"  "  an  eccentric." 
The  later  change  in  its  meaning  gives  to  the  word  "though"  in  the 
above  passage  an  almost  comic  effect. 


T.]  ''TRISTRAM  SHA^'DY,"  VOLS.  V.  AND  VI.  65 

or  without  them.  Present  my  best  and  warmest  wishes  to  them, 
and  advise  the  eldest  to  prop  up  his  spirits,  and  get  a  rich  dowager 
before  the  conclusion  of  the  peace.  "Why  will  not  the  advice  suit 
both, ^jcu*  nohile  fratrum ?■' 

In  conclusion,  he  tells  his  ^end  that  the  next^  morning, 
if  Heaven  permit,  lie  begins  the  fifth  volume  of  Skanclf/, 
and  adds,  defiantly,  that  he  "  cares  not  a-curse  for  the 
critics,"  but  "  will  load  my  vehicle  "s\'ith  what  goods  He 
sends  me,  and  they  may  take  'em  off  my  hands  or  let  'em 
alone." 

The  allusions  to  foreign  travel  in  this  letter  were  made 
v»'itb  something  more  than  a  jesting  intent.  Sterne  bad 
already  begun  to  be  seriously  alarmed,  and  not  'without 
reason,  about  the  condition  of  his  health.  He  shrank 
from  facing  another  English  winter,  and  meditated  a 
southward  flio-ht  so  soon  as  he  should  have  finished  his 
fifth  and  sixth  volumes,  and  seen  them  safe  in  the  print- 
er's hands.  His  publisher  he  had  changed,  for  what  rea- 
son is  not  known,  and  the  firm  of  Becket  ct  De  Hondt  had 
taken  the  place  of  Dodsley.  Sterne  hoped  by  the  end  of 
the  year  to  be  free  to  depart  from  England,  and  already 
he  had  made  all  arrangemiCnts  with  his  ecclesiastical  supe- 
riors for  the  necessary  leave  of  absence.  He  seems  to  have 
been  treated  with  all  consideration  in  the  matter.  His 
Archbishop,  on  being  applied  to,  at  once  excused  him  from 
parochial  work  for  a  year,  and  promised,  if  it  should  be 
necessary,  to  double  that  term.  Fortified  with  this  per- 
mission, Sterne  bade  farewell  to  his  wife  and  daughter, 
and  betook  himself  to  London,  with  his  now  completed 
volumes,  at  the  setting  in  of  the  winter.  On  the  21st  of 
December  they  made  their  appearance,  and  in  about  three 
weeks  from  that  date  their  author  left  England,  with  the 
intention  of  wintering  in  the  South  of  France.  There 
4 


66  STERNE.  [chap. 

were  clifRcultics,  however,  of  more  kinds  than  one  which 
had  first  to  be  faced — a  pecuniary  difficuU}',  which  Gar- 
rick  met  by  a  loan  of  20/.,  and  a  pohtical  difficuUy,  for 
the  removal  of  which  Sterne  had  to  employ  the  good 
offices  of  new  acquaintance  later  on.  lie  reached  Paris 
about  the  l7th  of  January,  1762,  and  there  met  with  a 
reception  which  interposed,  as  might  have  been  expected, , 
the  most  effectual  of  obstacles  to  his  further  progress/ 
southward.  He  was  received  in  Paris  with  open  arms, 
and  stepped  at  once  within  the  charmed  circle  of  the  phil- 
osophic salons.  Again  was  the  old  intoxicating  cup  pre- 
sented to  his  lips — this  time,  too,  with  more  dexterous  than 
English  hands — and  again  did  he  drink  deeply  of  it.  "  My 
head  is  turned,"  he  writes  to  Garrick,  "  with  what  I  sec, 
and  the  unexpected  honour  I  Lave  met  with  here.  Tiis- 
tram  was  almost  as  much  known  here  as  in  London,  at 
least  among  your  men  of  condition  and  learning,  and  has 
got  me  introduced  into  so  many  circles  ('tis  comme  a 
Londres)  I  have  just  now  a  fortnight's  dinners  and  sup- 
pers on  my  hands."  We  may  venture  to  doubt  whether 
French  politeness  had  not  been  in  one  respect  taken  some- 
what too  seriously  by  the  flattered  Englishman,  and  whether 
it  was  much  more  than  the  name  and  general  reputation 
of  Tristram,  which  was  "almost  as  much  known"  in  Paris 
as  in  London.  The  dinners  and  suppers,  however,  were,  at 
any  rate,  no  figures  of  speech,  but  very  liberal  entertain- 
ments, at  which  Sterne  appears  to  have  disported  himself 
with  all  his  usual  unclerical  abandon.  "  I  Shandy  it  away," 
he  writes  in  his  boyish  fashion  to  Garrick,  "  fifty  times 
more  than  I  was  ever  wont,  talk  more  nonsense  than  ever 
you  heard  me  talk  in  all  your  days,  and  to  all  sorts  of 
people.  'Qui  le  diable  est  cet  homme-la.?'  said  Choiseul, 
t'other  day,  'ce  Chevalier  Shandy?'"     [We  might  be  lis- 


v.]  FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE  COXTIXEXT.  67 

tening  to  one  of  Thackeray's  Irisli  heroes.]  "You'll  think 
me  as  vain  as  a  devil  was  I  to  tell  you  the  rest  of  the  dia- 
logiie/'  But  there  were  distinguished  Frenclimen  wlio 
wore  ready  to  render  to  the  English  author  more  impor- 
tant services  than  that  of  offering  him  hospitality  and 
flattery.  Peace  had  not  been  formally  concluded  between 
France  and  England,  and  the  passport  with  which  Sterne 
had  been  graciously  furnished  by  Pitt  was  not  of  force 
enougli  to  dispense  him  from  making  special  application 
to  the  French  Government  for  permission  to  remain  in  the 
country.  In  this  request  he  was  influentially  backed. 
"  My  application,"  he  writes,  "  to  the  Count  de  Choiseul 
goes  on  swimmingly,  for  not  only  M.  Pelletiere  (who  by- 
the-bye  sends  ten  thousand  civilities  to  you  and  Mrs.  G.) 
has  undertaken  my  affair,  but  the  Count  de  Limbourg. 
The  Baron  dTIolbacli  has  offered  any  security  for  the  in- 
offensiveness  of  my  behaviour  in  France — 'tis  more,  you 
rogue !  than  you  will  do."  And  then  the  orthodox,  or 
professedly  orthodox,  English  divine,  goes  on  to  describe 
the  character  and  habits  of  his  strange  new  friend:  "This 
Baron  is  one  of  the  most  learned  noblemen  here,  the  great 
protector  of  wits  and  of  the  savans  who  are  no  wits ;  keeps 
open  house  three  days  a  week — his  house  is  now,  as  yours 
was  to  me,  my  own — he  lives  at  great  expense."  Equally 
communicative  is  he  as  to  his  other  great  acquaintances. 
Among  tliese  were  the  Count  de  Bissie,  whom  by  an  "  odd 
incident"  (as  it  seemed  to  his  unsuspecting  vanity)  "I 
found  reading  Tristram  when  I  was  introduced  to  him, 
wLick  I  was,"  he  adds  (without  perceiving  the  connexion 
between  this  fact  and  the  "incident"),  "at  his  desire;" 
Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Macartney  (afterwards  the  Lord  Macart- 
ney of  Chinese  celebrity),  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans  (not 
yet  Egalite)  himself,  "  who  has  suffered  my  portrait  to  be 


68  ■  STERNE.  [chap. 

added  to  tlic  nuniLci'  of  some  odd  men  in  liis  collection, 
and  has  bad  it  taken  most  expressively  at  full  length  by  a 
gentleman  who  lives  with  him."  Nor  Avas  it  only  in  the 
delights  of  society  that  Sterne  was  now  revelling,  lie  was 
passionately  fond  of  the  theatre,  and  bis  letters  to  Garrick 
are  full  of  eager  criticism  of  the  great  French  performers, 
intermingled  with  flatteries,  sometimes  rather  full-bodied 
than  delicate,  of  their  famous  English  rival.  Of  Clairon, 
in  IpMgenie^  he  says  "  she  is  extremely  great.  Would  to 
God  you  had  one  or  two  like  her.  "What  a  luxury  to  see 
you  with  one  of  such  power  in  the  same  interesting  scene ! 
But  'tis  too  much."  A2;ain  he  writes :  "  The  French  com- 
cdy  I  seldom  visit ;  they  act  scarce  anything  but  tragedies  ; 
and  the  Clairon  is  great,  and  Mdlle.  Dumesmil  in  some 
parts  still  greater  than  her.  Yet  I  cannot  bear  preaching 
— I  fancy  I  got  a  surfeit  of  it  in  my  younger  days."  And 
in  a  later  letter : 

"  After  a  vile  suspension  of  three  weeks,  we  arc  beginning  with 
our  comedies  and  opei'as.  Yours  I  liear  never  flourished  more  ;  here 
the  comic  actors  were  never  so  low;  the  tragedians  hold  up  their 
heads  in  all  senses.  I  have  known  one  little  man  support  the  theat- 
rical world  like  a  David  Atlas  upon  his  shoulders,  but  Preville  can't 
do  half  as  much  here,  though  Mad,  Clairon  stands  by  him  and  sets 
her  back  to  his.  She  is  very  great,  however,  and  highly  improved 
since  you  saw  her.  She  also  supports  her  dignity  at  table,  and  has 
her  public  day  every  Thursday,  when  she  gives  to  eat  (as  they  say 
here)  to  all  that  are  hungry  and  dry.  You  are  much  talked  of  here, 
and  much  expected,  as  soon  as  the  peace  will  let  you.  These  two 
last  days  you  have  happened  to  engross  the  whole  conversation  at 
the  great  houses  where  I  was  at  dinner.  'Tis  the  greatest  problem 
in  nature  in  this  meridian  that  one  and  the  same  man  should  possess 
such  tragic  and  comic  powers,  and  in  such  an  cquUihrio  as  to  divide 
the  world  for  which  of  the  two  Xature  intended  him." 

And  while  on  this  subject  of  the  stage  let  us  pause  for 


v.]  PAEIS.  G9 

a  moment  to  glance  at  an  incident  ^YLicll  connects  Sterne 
Yvith  one  of  the  most  famous  of  bis  French  contempora- 
ries. He  has  been  asked  "  by  a  lady  of  talent,"  be  tells 
Garrick,  "  to  read  a  tragedy,  and  conjecture  if  it  would  do 
for  you.  'Tis  from  the  plan  of  Diderot ;  and,  possibly, 
half  a  translation  of  it :  The  Natural  Son,  or  the  Triumph 
of  Virtue,  in  five  acts.  It  has  too  much  sentiment  in  it 
(at  least  for  me);  the  speeches  too  long,  and  savour  too 
much  of  preaching.  This  may  be  a  second  reason  it  is 
not  to  my  taste — 'tis  all  love,  love,  love  throughout,  with- 
out mucb  separation  in  the  characters.  So  I  fear  it  would 
not  do  for  your  stage,  and  perhaps  for  the  very  reason 
which  recommends  it  to  a  Frencb  one."  It  is  curious  to 
see  the  "  adaptator  cerebrosuga  "  at  work  in  those  days  as 
in  these  ;  though  not,  in  this  instance,  as  it  seems,  with  as 
successful  results.  The  Xatural  Son,  or  the  Triumph  of 
Virtue,  is  not  known  to  have  reached  either  English  read- 
ers or  English  theatrical  audiences.  The  Frencb  original, 
as  we  know,  fared  scarcely  better.  "It  was  not  until  17 71," 
says  Diderot's  latest  English  biographer,  "  that  the  direc- 
tors of  the  French  Comedy  could  be  induced  to  place  Le 
Fils  Nature!  on  the  stage.  The  actors  detested  their  task, 
and,  as  we  can  well  believe,  went  sulkily  through  parts 
which  they  had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  master.  The  pub- 
lic felt  as  little  interest  in  the  piece  as  the  actors  had  done, 
and  after  one  or  two  representations,  it  was  put  aside."^ 

Another,  and  it  is  to  be  guessed  a  too  congenial,  ac- 
quaintance formed  by  Sterne  in  Paris  was  that  of  Crebil- 
lon ;  and  with  him  he  concluded  "  a  convention,"  unedi- 
fying  enough,  whether  in  jest  or  earnest:  "As  soon  as  I 
get  to  Toulouse  he  has  agreed  to  write  me  an  expostula- 
tory  letter  upon  the  indecorums  of  T.  Shandy,  which  is 
^  Morlev:  Diderot  and  the  Encydopcedists,  ii.  305. 


10  STERNE.  [chap. 

to  be  ansv»'crccl  by  rcciimination  upon  the  liberties  in  Lis 
own  works.  These  are  to  be  printed  together — Crebillon 
against  Sterne,  Sterne  against  Crebillon — the  copy  to  be 
sold,  and  the  money  equally  divided.  This  is  good  Swiss- 
policy,"  he  adds ;  and  the  idea  (which  was  never  carried 
out)  had  certainly  the  merit  of  ingenuity,  if  no  other. 

The  words  "as  soon  as  I  get  to  Toulouse,"  in  a  letter 
written  from  Paris  on  the  lOtli  of  April,  might  well  have 
reminded  Sterne  of  the  strange  way  in  which  he  had  car- 
ried out  his  intention  of  "  wintering  in  the  South."  lie 
insists,  however,  upon  the  curative  effects  of  his  winter  of 
gaiety  in  Paris.  "  I  am  recovered  greatly,"  he  says  ;  *'  and 
if  I  could  spend  one  whole  winter  at  Toulouse,  I  should  be 
fortified  in  my  inner  man  beyond  all  danger  of  relapsing." 
There  was  another,  too,  for  whom  this  change  of  climate 
had  become  imperatively  necessary.  For  three  winters 
past  his  daughter  Lydia,  now  fourteen  years  old,  had  been 
suffering  severely  from  asthma,  and  needed  to  try  "  the  last 
remedy  of  a  warmer  and  softer  air."  Iler  father,  therefore, 
was  about  to  solicit  passports  for  his  wife  and  daughter, 
with  a  view  to  their  joining  him  at  once  in  Paris,  whence, 
after  a  month's  sta}^,  they  were  to  depart  together  for  the 
South.  This  application  for  passports  he  intended,  he  said, 
to  make  "this  week:"  and  it  would  seem  that  the  inten- 
tion was  carried  out ;  but,  for  reasons  explained  in  a  letter 
which  Mr.  Fitzgerald  was  the  first  to  publish,  it  was  not 
till  the  middle  of  the  next  month  that  he  was  able  to  make 
preparation  for  their  joining  him.  From  this  letter — writ- 
ten to  his  Archbishop,  to  request  an  extension  of  his  leave 
— we  learn  that  while  applying  for  the  passports  he  was 
attacked  with  a  fever,  "  which  has  ended  the  worst  way  it 
could  for  me,  in  a  cUJluxion  (de)  2^oitrine,  as  the  French 
physicians  call  it.     It  is  generally  fatal  to  weak  lungs,  so 


T.]  PARIS.  Yl 

that  I  have  lost  in  ten  clays  all  I  have  gained  since  I  came 
here ;  and  from  a  relaxation,  of  my  lungs  have  lost  my 
voice  entirely,  that  'twill  be  much  if  I  ever  quite  recover 
it.  This  evil  sends  me  directly  to  Toulouse,  for  -^hich  I 
set  out  from  this  place  directly  my  family  arrives."  Evi- 
dently there  was  no  time  to  be  lost,  and  a  week  after  the 
date  of  this  letter  we  find  him  in  communication  with  Mrs. 
and  Miss  Sterne,  and  making  arrangements  for  what  was, 
in  those  days,  a  somewhat  formidable  undertaking — the 
journey  of  two  ladies  from  the  Xortli  of  England  to  the 
centre  of  France.  The  correspondence  which  ensued  may 
be  said  to  give  us  the  last  pleasant  glimpse  of  Sterne's  re- 
lations with  his  wife.  One  can  hardly  help  suspecting,  of 
course,  that  it  was  his  solicitude  for  the  safety  and  com- 
fort of  his  much-loved  daughter  that  mainly  inspired  the 
affectionate  anxiety  which  pervades  these  letters  to  Mrs. 
Sterne ;  but  their  vrriter  is,  at  the  very  least,  entitled  to 
credit  for  allowing  no  difference  of  tone  to  reveal  itself  in 
the  terms  in  which  he  speaks  of  wife  and  child.  And, 
whichever  of  the  two  he  was  mainly  thinking  of,  there  is 
something  very  engaging  in  the  thoughtful  minuteness  of 
his  instructions  to  the  two  women  travellers,  the  earnest- 
ness of  his  attempts  to  inspire  them  with  courage  for  their 
enterprise,  and  the  sincere  fervour  of  his  many  commen- 
dations of  them  to  the  Divine  keeping.  The  mixture  of 
"  canny  "  counsel  and  pious  invocation  has  frequently  a 
droll  effect:  as  when  the  advice  to  "give  the  custom-house 
officers  what  I  told  you,  and  at  Calais  more,  if  you  have 
much  Scotch  snuff  ;"  and  "  to  drink  small  Rhenish  to  keep 
you  cool,  that  is,  if  you  like  it,"  is  rounded  off  by  the  ejac- 
ulation, "  So  God  in  Heaven  prosper  and  go  along  with 
you !"  Letter  after  letter  did  he  send  them,  full  of  such 
reminders  as  that  "  they  have  bad  pins  and  vile  needles 


•72-  STERXE.  [chap. 

here,"  that  it  would  be  advisable  to  bring  with  them  a 
strong  bottle-screw,  and  a  good  stout  copper  tca-hettle ;  till 
at  last,  in  the  final  words  of  preparation,  his  language  as- 
sumes something  of  the  solemnity  of  a  general  addressing 
his  army  on  the  eve  of  a  well-nigh  desperate  enterprise : 
"Pluck  up  your  spirits — trust  in  God,  in  me,  and  your- 
selves; with  this,  was  you  put  to  it,  you  v/ould  encounter 
all  these  difiiculties  ten  times  told.  Write  instantly,  and 
tell  me  you  triumph  over  all  fears — tell  me  Lydia  is  bet- 
ter, and  a  help-mate  to  yon.  You  say  she  grows  like  me : 
let  her  show  me  she  does  so  in  her  contempt  of  small  dan- 
gers, and  fighting  against  the  apprehensions  of  them,  which 
is  better  still." 

At  last  this  anxiously  awaited  journey  was  taken  ;  and, 
on  Thursday,  July  7,  Mrs.  Sterne  and  her  daughter  arrived 
in  Paris.  Their  stay  there  was  not  long — not  much  ex- 
tended, probably,  beyond  the  proposed  week.  For  Sterne's 
health  had,  some  ten  days  before  the  arrival  of  his  family, 
again  given  him  warning  to  depart  quickly.  He  had  but 
a  few  weeks  recovered  from  the  fever  of  which  he  spoke 
in  his  letter  to  the  Archbishop,  when  he  again  broke  a 
blood-vessel  in  his  lungs.  It  happened  in  the  night,  and 
"finding  in  the  morning  that  I  was  likely  to  bleed  to 
death,  I  sent  immediately,"  he  says,  in  a  sentence  which 
quaintly  brings  out  the  paradox  of  contemporary  medical 
treatment,  "for  a  surgeon  to  bleed  me  at  both  arms.  This 
saved  me  " — /.  e.  did  not  kill  me — "  and,  with  lying  speech- 
less three  days,  I  recovered  upon  my  back  in  bed :  the 
breach  healed,  and  in  a  week  after  I  got  out."  But  the 
weakness  which  ensued,  and  the  subsequent  "  hurrying 
about,"  no  doubt  as  cicerone  of  Parisian  sights  to  his  wife 
and  daughter,  "  made  me  think  it  high  time  to  haste  to 
Toulouse."    .Accordingly,  about  the  20th  of  the  month, 


T.]  TOULOUSE.  Td 

and  "in  the  midst  of  sncli  heats  that  the  oldest  French- 
man never  remembers  the  like,"  the  party  set  off  by  way 
of  Lyons  and  Montpellicr  for  their  Pyrenean  destination. 
Their  journey  seems  to  have  been  a  journey  of  many  mis- 
chances, extraordinary  discomfort,  and  incredible  length ; 
and  it  is  not  till  the  second  week  in  August  that  we  again 
take  up  the  broken  thread  of  his  correspondence.  AVrit- 
ing  to  Mr.  Foley,  his  banker  in  Paris,  on  the  14th  of  that 
month,  he  speaks  of  its  having  taken  him  three  weeks  to 
reach  Toulouse ;  and  adds  that  "  in  our  journey  we  suffer- 
ed so  much  from  the  heats,  it  gives  me  pain  to  remember 
it.  I  never  saw^  a  cloud  from  Paris  to  Nismes  half  as 
broad  as  a  twenty-four  sols  piece.  Good  God !  we  were 
toasted,  roasted,  grilled,  stewed,  carbonaded,  on  one  side 
or  other,  all  the  way :  and  being  all  done  through  {assez 
cults)  in  the  day,  we  were  eat  up  at  night  by  bugs  and 
other  unswept-out  vermin,  the  legal  inhabitants,  if  length 
of  possession  give  right,  at  every  inn  on  the  way."  A  few 
miles  from  Beaucaire  he  broke  a  hind  wheel  of  his  car- 
riage, and  was  obliged  in  consequence  "  to  sit  five  hours 
on  a  gravelly  road  without  one  drop  of  water,  or  possibili- 
ty of  getting  any ;"  and  here,  to  mend  the  matter,  he  was 
cursed  with  "two  dough -hearted  fools"  for  postilions, 
who  "  fell  a-crying  '  nothing  was  to  be  done !' "  and  could 
only  be  recalled  to  a  worthier  and  more  helpful  mood  by 
Sterne's  "  pulling  off  his  coat  and  waistcoat,"  and  "  threat- 
enino-  to  thrash  them  both  within  an  inch  of  their  lives." 

The  longest  journey,  however,  must  come  to  an  end ; 
and  the  party  found  much  to  console  them  at  Toulouse  for 
the  miseries  of  travel.  They  were  fortunate  enough  to  se- 
cure one  of  those  large,  old  comfortable  houses  which  were 
and,  here  and  there,  perhaps,  still  are  to  be  hired  on  the 
outskirts  of  provincial  towns,  at  a  rent  which  would  now 
4* 


74  STERNE.  [cuap.  t. 

be  tliouglit  absurdly  small ;  and  Sterne  writes  in  terms  of 
high  complacency  of  his  temporary  abode.  "Excellent," 
"  well  furnished,"  "  elegant  beyond  anything  I  ever  looked 
for,"  arc  some  of  the  expressions  of  praise  which  it  draws 
from  him.  lie  observes  with  pride  that  the  "  very  great 
salle  a  compagnie  is  as  large  as  Baron  d'llolbach's ;"  and 
he  records  with  great  satisfaction — as  well  he  might — that 
for  the  use  of  this  and  a  country  house  two  miles  out  of 
town,  "  besides  the  enjoyment  of  gardens,  which  the  land- 
lord engaged  to  keep  in  order,"  he  was  to  pay  no  more 
than  thirty  pounds  a  year.  "  All  things,"  he  adds,  "  are 
cheap  in  proportion :  so  we  shall  live  here  for  a  very,  very 
little." 

And  this,  no  doubt,  was  to  Sterne  a  matter  of  some  mo- 
ment at  this  time.  The  expenses  of  his  long  and  tedious 
journey  must  have  been  heavy ;  and  the  gold-yielding  vein 
of  literary  popularity,  which  he  had  for  three  years  been 
working,  had  already  begun  to  show  signs  of  exhaustion. 
Tristram  Shandy  had  lost  its  first  vogue ;  and  the  fifth 
and  sixth  volumes,  the  copyright  of  which  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  disposed  of,  were  "going  ofi"  but  slowly. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LIFE    IX    the"  SOUTH. RETURX    TO    ENGLAND. VOLS.  YII. 

AND    VIII. SECOND    SET   OF   SERMONS. 

(1T62-1TG5.) 

The  diminished  appetite  of  tlie  public  for  the  humours  of 
Mr.  Shandy  and  his  brother  is,  perhaps,  not  very  difficult 
to  understand.  Time  "was  simply  doing  its  usual  whole- 
some work  in  siftino-  the  false  from  the  true — in  ridding^ 
Sterne's  audience  of  its  contingent  of  sham  admirers.  This 
is  not  to  say,  of  course,  that  there  might  not  have  been 
other  and  better  grounds  for  a  partial  withdrawal  of  popu- 
lar favour.  A  writer  who  systematically  employs  Sterne's 
peculiar  methods  must  lay  his  account  with  undeserved 
loss  as  well  as  with  unmerited  gain.  The  fifth  and  sixth 
volumes  deal  quite  largely  enough  in  mere  eccentricity  to 
justify  the  distaste  of  any  reader  upon  whom  mere  eccen- 
tricity had  begun  to  pall.  But  if  this  were  the  sole  ex- 
planation of  tlie  book's  declining  popularity,  we  should 
have  to  admit  that  the  adverse  judgment  of  the  public  had 
been  delayed  too  long  for  justice,  and  had  passed  over  the 
worst  to  light  upon  the  less  heinous  offences.  For  the 
third  volume,  though  its  earlier  pages  contain  some  good 
touches,  drifts  away  into  mere  dull,  uncleanly  equivoque  in 
its  concluding  chapters;  and  the  fifth  and  sixth  volumes 
may,  at  any  rate,  quite  safely  challenge  favourable  corapar- 


76  STERNE.  [chap. 

ison  Nvitli  the  fourth — the  poorest,  I  venture  to  think,  of 
the  Avhole  scries.  There  is  nothing  in  these  two  later  vol- 
umes to  compare,  for  instance,  with  that  most  wearisome 
exercise  in  double  entendre,  Slawkenbcrgius's  Tale ;  nothing 
to  match  that  painfully  elaborate  piece  of  low  comedy,  the 
consultation  of  philosophers  and  its  episode  of  Phutatori- 
us's  mishap  with  the  hot  chestnut ;  no  such  persistent  re- 
sort, in  short,  to  those  mechanical  methods  of  mirth-mak- 
ing npon  which  Sterne,  throughout  a  great  part  of  the 
fourth  volume,  almost  exclusively  relies.  The  humour  of 
the  fifth  is,  to  a  far  larger  extent,  of  the  creative  and  dra-/ 
matic  order;  the  ever-delightful  collision  of  iutellectuaj! 
incongruities  in  the  persons  of  the  two  brothers  Shandy 
gives  animation  to  the  volume  almost  from  beginning  to 
end.  The  arrival  of  the  news  of  Bobby  Shandy's  death, 
and  the  contrast  of  its  reception  by  the  philosophic  father 
and.  the  simple-minded  uncle,  form  a  scene  of  inimitable 
absurdity,  and  the  "  Tristrap?edia,"  with  its  ingenious  proj- 
ect for  opening  up  innumerable  "  tracks  of  inquiry  "  be- 
fore the  mind  of  the  pupil  by  sheer  skill  in  the  manipula- 
tion of  the  auxiliary  verbs,  is  in  the  author's  happiest  vein. 
The  sixth  volume,  again,  which  contains  the  irresistible 
dialogue  between  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Shandy  on  the  great  ques- 
tion of  the  "  breeching  of  Tristram,"  and  the  much-admired, 
if  not  wholly  admirable,  episode  of  Le  Fevre's  death,  is  ful- 
ly entitled  to  rank  beside  its  predecessors.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  it  must  be  said  that  the  colder  reception  accorded 
to  this  instalment  of  the  novel,  as  compared  with  the  pre 
vious  one,  can  hardly  be  justified  on  sound  critical  grounds. 
But  that  literary  shortcomings  were  not,  in  fact,  the  cause 
of  Tristrani's  declining  popularity  may  be  confidently  in- 
ferred from  the  fact  that  the  seventh  volume,  with  its  ad- 
mirably vivid  and  spirited  scenes  of  Continental  travel,  and 


Ti.]  LIFE  IX  THE  SOUTH.  77 

tlie  eigbtli  and  ninth,  with  their  charming  narrative  of  Cap- 
tain Shandy's  love  affair,  "were  but  slightly  more  successful. 
The  readers  whom  this,  the  third  instalment  of  the  novel, 
had  begun  to  repel,  were  mainly,  I  imagine,  those  who  had 
never  felt  any  intelligent  admiration  for  the  former;  who 
had  been  caught  by  the  writer's  eccentricity,  without  ap- 
preciating his  insight  into  character  and  his  graphic  power, 
and  who  had  seen  no  other  aspects  of  his  humour  than 
those  buffooneries  and  puerilities  which,  after  first  amusing, 
had  begun,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  to  weary  them. 
Meanwhile,  however,  and  with  spirits  restored  by  the 
Southern  warmth  to  that  buoyancy  which  never  long  de- 
serted them,  Sterne  had  begun  to  set  to  work  upon  a 
new  volume.  His  letters  show  that  this  was  not  the 
seventh  but  the  eighth  ;  and  Mr.  Fitzgerald's  conjecture, 
that  the  materials  ultimately  given  to  the  world  in  the  for- 
mer volume  were  originally  designed  for  another  work, 
appears  exceedingly  probable.  But  for  some  time  after 
his  arrival  at  Toulouse  he  was  unable,  it  would  seem,  to 
resume  his  literary  labours  in  any  form.  Ever  liable, 
through  his  weakly  constitution,  to  whatever  local  mala- 
dies might  anywhere  prevail,  he  had  fallen  ill,  he  writes  to 
Hall  Stevenson,  "  of  an  epidemic  vile  fever  which  killed 
hundreds  about  me.  The  physicians  here,"  he  adds,  "arc 
the  arrantest  charlatans  in  Europe,  or  the  most  ignorant  of 
all  pretending  fools.  I  withdrew  what  was  left  of  me  out 
of  their  hands,  and  recommended  my  affairs  entirely  to 
Dame  Xature.  She  (dear  goddess)  has  saved  me  in  fifty 
different  pinching  bouts,  and  I  begin  to  have  a  kind  of 
enthusiasm  now  in  her  favour  and  ray  own,  so  that  one  or 
two  more  escapes  will  make  me  believe  I  shall  leave  you 
all  at  last  by  translation,  and  not  by  fair  death."  Having 
now  become  "  stout  and  foolish  ao-ain  as  a  man  can  wish 


18  STERNE.  [chap. 

to  be,  I  am,"  he  s.i}'??,  "  busy  playing  the  fool  with,  my 
Uncle  Toby,  whom  I  have  got  sonsed  over  head  and  ears 
in  love."  Now,  it  is  not  till  the  eighth  volume  that  the 
AVidow  Wadman  begins  to  weave  her  spells  around  Cap- 
tain Shandy's  ingenuous  heart ;  wdiile  the  seventh  volume 
is  mainly  composed  of  that  series  of  travel-pictures  in 
which  Sterne  has  manifestly  recorded  his  own  impressions 
of  Northern  France  in  the  person  of  the  youthful  Tristram. 
It  is  scarcely  doubtful,  therefore,  that  it  is  these  sketches, 
and  the  use  which  he  then  proposed  to  make  of  them,  that 
he  refers  to,  when  speaking  in  this  letter  of  ''  hints  and 
projects  for  other  w^orks."  Originally  intended  to  form  a 
part  of  the  volume  afterwards  published  as  the  Sentimental 
Journe^j,  it  was  found  necessary — under  pressure,  it  is  to  be 
supposed,  of  insufficient  matter — to  work  them  up  instead 
into  an  interpolated  seventh  volume  of  Tristram  Shandy. 
At  the  moment,  however,  lie  no  doubt  as  little  foresaw  this 
as  he  did  the  delay  whicli  was  to  take  place  before  any 
continuation  of  the  novel  appeared.  lie  clearly  contem- 
plated no  very  long  absence  from  England.  "When  I 
have  reaped  the  benefit  of  the  winter  at  Toulouse,  I  cannot 
see  I  have  anything  more  to  do  with  it.  Therefore,  after 
having  gone  with  my  wafe  and  girl  to  Bagneres,  I  shall 
return  from  whence  I  came."  Already,  however,  one  can 
perceive  signs  of  his  having  too  presumptuously  marked 
out  his  future.  "  My  wife  wants  to  stay  another  year,  to 
save  money ;  and  this  opposition  of  wishes,  though  it  will 
not  be  as  sour  as  lemon,  yet  'twill  not  be  as  sweet  as 
sugar."  And  again  :  "  If  the  snows  will  suffer  me,  I  pro- 
pose to  spend  tw^o  or  three  months  at  Barege  or  Bagneres ; 
but  my  dear  wife  is  against  all  schemes  of  additional  ex- 
pense, which  wicked  propensity  (though  not  of  despotic 
power)  yet  I  cannot  suffer — though,  by-the-bye,  laudable 


VI.]  LIFE  IX  THE  SOUTH.  79 

enougli.  But  slie  may  talk ;  I  will  go  niy  own  ^Yay,  and 
slie  will  acquiesce  "without  a  word  of  debate  on  the  sub- 
ject. Who  can  say  so  much  in  praise  of  his  wife?  Few, 
I  trow."  The  tone  of  contemptuous  amiability  shows 
pretty  clearly  that  the  relations  between  husband  and  wife 
had  in  nowise  improved.  But  wives  do  not  always  lose 
all  their  influence  over  husbands'  wills  along  with  the 
power  over  their  affections ;  and  it  will  be  seen  that  Sterne 
did  not  make  his  projected  winter  trip  to  Bagneres,  and 
that  he  did  remain  at  Toulouse  for  a  considerable  part  of 
the  second  year  for  which  Mrs.  Sterne  desired  to  prolong 
their  stay.  The  place,  however,  was  not  to  his  taste ;  and 
he  was  not  the  first  traveller  in  France  who,  delighted  with 
the  gaiety  of  Paris,  has  been  disappointed  at  finding  that 
French  provincial  towns  can  be  as  dull  as  dulness  itself 
could  require.  It  is  in  the  somewhat  unjust  mood  which  is 
commonly  begotten  of  disillusion  that  Sterne  discovers  the 
cause  of  his  ennui  in  "  the  eternal  platitude  of  the  French 
character,"  with  its  "little  variety  and  no  originality  at 
all."  "  They  are  very  civil,"  he  admits,  "  but  civility  itself 
so  thus  uniform  wearies  and  bothers  me  to  death.  If  I 
do  not  mind  I  shall  grow  most  stupid  and  sententious." 
With  such  apprehensions  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  should 
have  eao-erlv  welcomed  anv  distraction  that  chance  might 
offer,  and  in  December  we  find  him  joyfully  informing  his 
chief  correspondent  of  the  period,  Mr.  Foley — who  to  his 
services  as  Sterne's  banker  seems  to  have  added  those  of  a 
most  helpful  and  trusted  friend — that  "there  are  a  com- 
pany of  English  strollers  arrived  here  who  are  to  act 
comedies  all  the  Christmas,  and  are  now  busy  in  making 
dresses  and  preparing  some  of  our  best  comedies."  These 
so-called  strollers  were,  in  fact,  certain  members  of  the 
English  colony  in  Toulouse,  and  their  performances  were 


80  STERNE.  [chap. 

among  the  first  of  those  "amateur  theatrical"  entertain- 
ments which  now-a-days  may  be  said  to  rival  the  famous 
"morning-  drum-beat"  of  Daniel  Webster's  oration,  in 
marking  the  ubiquity  of  British  -boredom,  as  the  reveil 
does  that  of  British  power  over  all  the  terrestrial  globe. 
"  The  next  week,"  writes  Sterne,  "  with  a  grand  orchestra, 
we  play  The  Busyhochj,  and  the  Journey  to  London  the 
week  after ;  but  I  have  some  thought  of  adapting  it  to 
our  situation,  and  making  it  tlie  Journey  to  Toulouse^ 
which,  with  the  change  of  half-a-dozen  scenes,  may  be 
easily  done.  Thus,  my  dear  Foley,  for  want  of  something 
better  we  have  recourse  to  ourselves,  and  strike  out  the 
best  amusements  we  can  from  such  materials."  "  Re- 
course to  ourselves,"  however,  means,  in  strict  accuracy, 
"  recourse  to  each  other ;"  and  when  the  amateur  players 
bad  played  themselves  out,  and  exhausted  their  powers  of 
contributing  to  each  others'  amusement,  it  is  probable  that 
"  recourse  to  ourselves,"  in  the  exact  sense  of  the  phrase, 
was  found  ineffective — in  Sterne's  case,  at  any  rate — to 
stave  off  ennui.  To  him,  with  his  copiously  if  somewhat 
oddly  furnished  mind,  and  his  natural  activity  of  imagi- 
nation, one  could  hardly  apply  the  line  of  Persius, 

"Tecum  liabita  et  naris  quam  sit  tibi  curta  supellex;"" 

but  it  is  yet  evident  enough  that  Sterne's  was  one  of  that 
numerous  order  of  intellects  which  are  the  convivial  as- 
sociates, rather  than  the  fireside  companions,  of  their  own- 
ers, and  which,  Avhen  deprived  of  the  stimulus  of  external 
excitement,  are  apt  to  become  very  dull  company  indeed. 
Nor  does  he  seem  to  have  obtained  much  diversion  of 
mind  from  his  literary  work — a  form  of  intellectual  en- 
joyment which,  indeed,  more  often  presupposes  than  be- 
gets good  spirits  in  such  temperaments  as  his.     He  de- 


yi.]  LIFE  IN  THE  SOUTH.  81 

clares,  it  is  true,  that  he  "  sports  much  v*  ith  my  Uncle 
Toby  "  in  the  vokirae  •v\'hich  he  is  now  "  fabricating  for 
the  laughing  part  of  the  world ;"  but  if  so  he  must  have 
sported  only  after  a  very  desultory  and  dilatory  fashion. 
On  the  whole  one  cannot  escape  a  very  strong  impression 
that  Sterne  was  heartily  bored  by  his  sojourn  in  Toulouse, 
and  that  he  eagerly  longed  for  the  day  of  his  return  to 
"the  dalliance  and  the  wit,  the  flattery  and  the  strife," 
which  he  had  left  behind  him  in  the  two  great  capitals  in 
which  he  had  shone. 

His  stay,  however,  was  destined  to  be  very  prolonged. 
The  winter  of  17G2  went  by,  and  the  succeeding  year  had 
run  nearly  half  its  course,  before  he  changed  his  quarters. 
"The  first  week  in  June,"  he  writes  in  x\pril  to  Mr.  Foley, 
"I  decamp  like  a  patriarch,  with  all  my  household, to  pitch 
our  tents  for  three  months  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenean 
hills  at  Bagneres,  where  I  expect  much  health  and  much 
amusement  from  all  corners  of  the  earth."  lie  t-jlked  too 
at  this  time  of  spending  the  "winter  at  Florence,  and,  after 
a  visit  to  Leghorn,  returning  home  the  following  April  by 
way  of  Paris ;  "  but  this,"  he  adds,  "  is  a  sketch  only," 
and  it  remained  only  a  sketch.  Toulouse,  however,  he 
was  in  any  case  resolved  to  quit.  He  should  not,  he  said, 
be  tempted  to  spend  another  Avinter  there.  It  did  not  suit 
his  health,  as  he  had  hoped:  he  complained  that  it  was  too 
moist,  and  that  he  could  not  keep  clear  of  ague.  In  June, 
1763,  he  quitted  it  finally  for  Bagneres;  whence  after  a 
short,  and,  as  we  subsequently  learn,  a  disappointed,  so- 
journ, he  passed  on  to  Marseilles,  and  later  to  Aix,  for 
both  of  which  places  he  expressed  dislike ;  and  by  Octo- 
ber he  had  gone  again  into  winter  quarters  at  Montpellier, 
where  "  my  wife  and  daughter,"  he  writes,  "  purpose  to 
stay  at  least  a  year  behind  me."     His  own  intention  was 


82  STERNE.  [cnAP. 

to  set  out  in  February  for  Englanrl,  ''  wliere  my  heart  has 
been  fled  these  six  months."  Here  again,  however,  there 
are  traces  of  that  periodic,  or  rather,  perhaps,  that  chronic 
conflict  of  inclination  between  liinisclf  and  Mrs.  Sterne,  of 
which  he  speaks  with  such  a  tell-tale  affectation  of  philos- 
ophy. "  My  wife,"  he  writes  in  January,  "  returns  to  Tou- 
louse, and  proposes  to  spend  the  summer  at  Bagneres.  I, 
on  the  contrary,  go  to  visit  my  wife  the  church  in  York- 
shire. We  all  live  the  longer,  at  least  the  happier,  for 
having  things  our  own  way.  This  is  my  conjugal  maxim. 
I  own  'tis  not  the  best  of  maxims,  bat  I  maintain  'tis  not 
the  worst."  It  was,  natural  enough  that  Sterne,  at  any  rate, 
should  wish  to  turn  his  back  on  Montpellier.  Again  had 
the  unlucky  invalid  been  attacked  by  a  dangerous  illness ; 
the  "sharp  air"  of  the  place  disagreed  with  him,  and  his 
physicians,  after  having  him  under  their  hands  more  than 
a  month,  informed  him  coolly  that  if  he  stayed  any  longer 
in  Montpellier  it  would  be  fatal  to  him.  How  soon  after 
that  somewhat  late  warning  he  took  his  departure  there 
is  no  record  to  show ;  but  it  is  not  till  the  middle  of  Alay 
that  we  find  him  writing  from  Paris  to  his  daughter.  And 
since  he  there  announces  his  intention  of  leaving  for  Eng- 
land in  a  few  days,  it  is  a  probable  conjecture  that  he  had 
arrived  at  the  French  capital  some  fortnight  or  so  before. 

His  short  stay  in  Paris  was  marked  by  two  incidents — 
trifling  in  themselves,  but  too  characteristic  of  the  man  to 
be  omitted.  Lord  Hertford,  the  British  Ambassador,  had 
just  taken  a  magnificent  hotel  in  Paris,  and  Sterne  was 
asked  to  preach  the  first  sermon  in  its  chapel.  The  mes- 
sage was  brought  him,  he  writes,  "when  I  was  playing  a 
sober  o-ame  of  whist  with  Mr.  Thornhill ;  and  wdiether  I 
was  called  abruptly  from  my  afternoon  amusement  to  pre- 
pare myself  for  the  business  on  the  next  day,  or  from  what 


Ti.]  LIFE  IX  THE  SOUTH.  83 

otlier  cause,  I  do  not  pretend  to  determine ;  but  that  un- 
lucky kind  of  fit  seized  me  ^Yllich  you  know  I  am  never 
able  to  resist,  and  a  very  unlucky  text  did  come  into  my 
head."  The  text  referred  to  was  2  Kings  xx.  15 — Ileze- 
kiali's  admission  of  that  ostentatious  display  of  the  treas- 
ures of  his  palace  to  the  ambassadors  of  Babylon  for  which 
Isaiah  rebuked  him  by  prophesying  the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity of  Judah.  Nothing,  indeed,  as  Sterne  protests,  could 
have  been  more  innocent  than  the  discourse  which  he 
founded  upon  the  mal-a-p'opos  text ;  but  still  it  was  un- 
questionably a  fair  subject  for  "  chaff,"  and  the  preacher 
was  rallied  upon  it  by  no  less  a  person  than  David  Hume. 
Gossip  having  magnified  this  into  a  dispute  between  the 
parson  and  the  philosopher,  Sterne  disposes  of  the  idle 
story  in  a  passage  deriving  an  additional  interest  from  its 
tribute  to  that  sweet  disposition  which  had  an  equal  charm 
for  two  men  so  utterly  unlike  as  the  author  of  Tristram 
Shanchj  and  the  author  of  the  JVealth  of  Xations.  "  I 
should,"  he  writes,  "  be  exceedingly  surprised  to  hear  that 
David  ever  had  an  unpleasant  contention  with  any  man ; 
and  if  I  should  ever  be  made  to  believe  that  such  an  event 
had  happened,  nothing  would  persuade  me  that  his  oppo- 
nent was  not  in  the  wrong,  for  in  my  life  did  I  never  meet 
with  a  being  of  a  more  placid  and  gentle  nature ;  and  it  is 
this  amiable  turn  of  his  character  which  has  given  more 
consequence  and  force  to  his  scepticism  than  all  the  argu- 
ments of  his  sophistry."  The  real  truth  of  the  matter 
was  that,  meeting  Sterne  at  Lord  Hertford's  table  on  the 
day  when  he  had  preached  at  the  Embassy  Chapel,  "  David 
was  disposed  to  make  a  little  merry  with  the  parson,  and 
in  return  the  parson  was  equally  disposed  to  make  a  little 
merry  with  the  infidel.  AVe  laughed  at  one  another,  and 
the  company  laughed  with  us  both."     It  would  be  absurd, 


84  STERNE.  [chap. 

of  course,  to  identify  Sterne's  laiiitudinarian  bonhomie  witli 
the  Liglier  order  of  tolerance ;  but  many  a  more  confirmed 
and  notorious  Gallio  than  the  clerical  Immourist  ^vould 
have  assumed  prudish  airs  of  orthodoxy  in  sucli  a  pres- 
ence, and  the  incident,  if  it  does  not  raise  one's  estimate 
of  Sterne's  dignity,  displays  him  to  us  as  laudably  free 
from  hypocrisy. 

But  the  long  holiday  of  somewhat  dull  travel,  with  its 
short  last  act  of  social  gaiety,  was  drawing  to  a  close.  In 
the  third  or  fourth  week  of  May  Sterne  quitted  Paris;  and 
after  a  stay  of  a  few  w'celvs  in  London  he  returned  to  the 
Yorkshire  parsonage,  from  which  he  had  been  absent  some 
thirty  months. 

Unusually  long  as  was  the  interval  which  had  elapsed 
since  the  publication  of  the  last  instalment  of  Tristram 
Shandy,  the  new  one  was  far  from  ready ;  and  even  in 
the  "  sweet  retirement "  of  Coxwold  he  seems  to  have 
made  but  slow  progress  with  it.  Indeed,  the  "  sweet  re- 
tirement "  itself  became  soon  a  little  tedious  to  him.  The 
month  of  September  found  him  already  bored  with  work 
and  solitude;  and  the  fine  autumn  weather  of  17G4  set 
him  longing  for  a  few  days'  pleasure-making  at  what  was 
even  then  the  fashionable  Yorkshire  w^atcring-place.  "  I 
do  not  think,"  he  writes,  with  characteristic  incoherence, 
to  Hall  Stevenson — "I  do  not  think  a  week  or  ten  days' 
playing  the  good  fellow  (at  this  very  time)  so  abominable 
a  thing ;  but  if  a  man  could  get  there  cleverly,  and  every 
soul  in  his  house  in  the  mind  to  try  what  could  be  done 
in  furtherance  thereof,  I  have  no  one  to  consult  in  these 
affairs.  Therefore,  as  a  man  may  do  worse  things,  the 
plain  English  of  all  which  is,  that  I  am  going  to  leave  a 
few  poor  sheep  in  the  wilderness  for  fourteen  days,  and 
from  pride  and  naughtiness  of  heart  to  go  see  what  is 


VI.]  RETUKX  TO  EXGLAXD.  85 

doing  at  Scarborongli,  steadfully  meaning  afterwards  to 
lead  a  new  life  and  strengthen  my  faith.  Xow,  some  folks 
say  there  is  much  company  there,  and  some  say  not ;  and 
I  believe  there  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but  will  be 
botli  if  the  world  will  have  patience  for  a  month  or  so." 
Of  his  work  he  has  not  much  to  say:  "I  go  on  not  rap- 
idly but  well  enough  with  my  Uncle  Toby's  amours. 
There  is  no  sitting  and  cudgelling  one's  brains  whilst  the 
sun  shines  bright.  'Twill  be  all  over  in  six  or  seven 
weeks ;  and  there  are  dismal  weeks  enow  after  to  endure 
suffocation  by  a  brimstone  fireside."  He  was  anxious  that 
his  boon  companion  should  join  hira  at  Scarborough  ;  but 
that  additional  pleasure  was  denied  him,  and  he  had  to 
content  himself  with  the  usual  gay  society  of  the  place. 
Three  weeks,  it  seems,  were  passed  by  hira  in  this  most 
doubtfully  judicious  form  of  bodily  and  mental  relaxation 
— weeks  which  he  spent,  he  afterwards  writes,  in  "  drinking 
the  waters,  and  receiving  from  them  marvellous  strength, 
had  I  not  debilitated  it  as  fast  as  I  got  it  by  playing  the 
good  fellow  with  Lord  Granby  and  Co.  too  much."  By 
the  end  of  the  month  he  was  back  again  at  Coxwold, 
"  returned  to  my  Philosophical  Ilut  to  finish  Tristram, 
which  I  calculate  will  be  ready  for  the  world  about  Christ- 
mas, at  which  time  I  decamp  from  hence  and  fix  my  head- 
quarters at  London  for  the  winter,  unless  ray  cough  pushes 
me  forward  to  your  metropolis"  (he  is  writing  to  Foley, 
in  Paris),  "  or  that  I  can  persuade  some  c/ros  milord  to 
make  a  trip  to  you."  Again,  too,  in  this  letter  we  get 
another  glimpse  at  that  thoroughly  desentimentalized 
''domestic  interior"  which  the  sentimentalist's  household 
had  long  presented  to  the  view.  Writing  to  request  a 
remittance  of  money  to  Mrs.  Sterne  at  Montauban — a  duty 
which,  to  do  him  justice,  he  seems  to  have  very  watchfully 


86  STERXE.  [chap. 

observed — Sterne  adds  Lis  solicitation  to  Mr.  Foley  to  "do 
something  equally  essential  to  rectify  a  mistake  in  the 
mind  of  your  correspondent  there,  who,  it  seems,  gave  her 
a  hint  not  long  ago  '  that  she  was  separated  from  me  for 
life.'  Now,  as  this  is  not  true,  in  the  first  place,  and  may 
fix  a  disadvantageous  impression  of  her  to  those  she  lives 
amongst,  'twould  be  unmerciful  to  let  her  or  my  daughter 
suffer  by  it.  So  do  be  so  good  as  to  undeceive  him  ;  for 
in  a  year  or  two  she  purposes  (and  I  expect  it  with  impa- 
tience from  her)  to  rejoin  me." 

Early  in  November  the  two  new  vohimes  of  Shandy  be- 
gan to  approach  completion ;  for  by  this  time  Sterne  had 
already  made  up  his  mind  to  interpolate  these  notes  of  his 
French  travels,  which  now  do  duty  as  Vol.  YII.  "You 
will  read,"  he  tells  Foley,  "  as  odd  a  tour  through  France 
as  was  ever  projected  or  executed  by  traveller  or  travel- 
writer  since  the  world  began.  'Tis  a  laughing,  good-tem- 
pered satire  upon  travelling — as  2^^^ppi^^  travel."  By  the 
IGth  of  the  month  he  had  "finished  my  two  volumes 
of  Tristraniy^  and  looked  to  be  in  London  at  Christmas, 
"whence  I  have  some  thoughts  of  going  to  Italy  this  year. 
At  least  I  shall  not  defer  it  above  another."  On  the  26th 
of  January,  1765,  the  two  new  volumes  were  given  to  the 
world. 

Shorter  in  length  than  any  of  the  preceding  instalments, 
and  filled  out  as  it  was,  even  so,  by  a  process  of  what 
would  now  be  called  "  book-making,"  this  issue  will  yet 
bear  comparison,  I  think,  with  the  best  of  its  predecessors. 
Its  sketches  of  travel,  though  destined  to  be  surpassed  in 
vigour  and  freedom  of  draftsmanship  by  the  Sentimental 
Journey^  are  yet  excellent,  and  their  very  obvious  want  of 
connexion  with  the  story — if  story  it  can  be  called — is  so 
little  felt  that  avc  almost  resent  the  head-and-ears  introduc- 


VI.]         "TRISTRAM  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  VII.  AND  VIIL  S1 

tion  of  Mr.  Shandy  and  his  brother,  and  the  Corporal,  in 
apparent  concession  to  the  popular  prejudice  in  favour  of 
some  sort  of  coherence  between  the  various  parts  of  a  nar- 
rative. The  first  seventeen  chapters  are,  perhaps,  as  freshly 
delightful  reading  as  anything  in  Sterne.  They  are  liter- 
ally filled  and  brimming  over  with  the  exhilaration  of 
travel:  written,  or  at  least  prepared  for  writing,  we  can 
clearly  see,  under  the  full  intoxicant  effect  which  a  bewil- 
dering succession  of  new  sights  and  sounds  will  produce, 
in  a  certain  measure,  upon  the  coolest  of  us,  and  which 
would  set  a  head  like  Sterne's  in  an  absolute  whirl.  The 
contagion  of  his  high  cpirlts  is,  however,  irresistible ;  and, 
putting  aside  all  other  and  more  solid  qualities  in  them, 
these  chapters  are,  for  mere  fun — for  that  kind  of  clever 
nonsense  which  only  wins  by  perfect  spontaneity,  and 
■which  so  promptly  makes  ashamed  the  moment  sponta- 
neity fails — unsurpassed  by  anything  of  the  same  kind 
from  the  same  hand.  How  strange,  then,  that,  with  so 
keen  an  eye  for  the  humorous,  so  sound  and  true  a  judg- 
ment in  the  highest  qualities  of  humour,  Sterne  should 
think  it  possible  for  any  one  who  has  outgrown  what  may 
be  called  the  dirty  stage  of  boyhood  to  smile  at  the  story 
which  begins  a  few  chapters  afterwards  —  that  of  the 
Abbess  and  Novice  of  the  Convent  of  Andouillets  I  The 
adult  male  person  is  not  so  much  shocked  at  the  coarse- 
ness of  this  story  as  astounded  at  the  bathos  of  its  intro- 
duction. It  is  as  though  some  matchless  connoisseur  in 
wine,  after  having  a  hundred  times  demonstrated  the  un- 
erring discrimination  of  his  palate  for  the  finest  brands, 
should  then  produce  some  vile  and  loaded  compound,  and 
invite  us  to  drink  it  with  all  the  relish  with  which  he 
seems  to  be  swallowing  it  himself.  This  story  of  the  Ab- 
bess and  Novice  almost  impels  us  to  turn  back  to  certain 


88  STEKNE.  [chap. 

earlier  chapters,  or  former  volumes,  and  re-examine  some 
of  tlie  subtler  passages  of  humour  to  be  found  there — in 
downright  apprehension  lest  we  should  turn  out  to  have 
read  these  "good  things,"  not  "in,"  but  "into,"  our  au- 
thor. The  bad  wine  is  so  very  bad,  that  we  catch  our- 
selves wondering  whether  the  finer  brands  were  genuine, 
when  we  see  the  same  palate  equally  satisfied  with  both. 
But  one  should,  of  course,  add  that  it  is  only  in  respect  of 
its  supposed  humour  that  this  story  shakes  its  readers' 
faith  in  the  gifts  of  the  narrator.  As  a  mere  piece  of 
story-telling,  and  even  as  a  study  in  landscape  and  figure- 
painting,  it  is  quite  perversely  skilful.  There  is  something 
almost  irritating,  as  a  waste  of  powers  on  unworthy  ma- 
terial, in  the  prettiness  of  the  picture  which  Sterne  draws 
of  the  preparations  for  the  departure  of  the  two  reUgieuses 
— the  stir  in  the  simple  village,  the  co-operating  labours  of 
the  gardener  and  the  tailor,  the  carpenter  and  the  smith, 
and  all  those  other  little  details  which  bring  the  whole 
scene  before  the  eye  so  vividly  that  Sterne  may,  perhaps, 
in  all  seriousness,  and  not  merely  as  a  piece  of  his  charac- 
teristic persiflage,  have  thrown  in  the  exclamation,  "  I  de- 
clare I  am  interested  in  this  story,  and  wish  I  had  been 
there."  Nothing,  again,  could  be  better  done  than  the 
sketch  of  the  little  good-natured,  "broad-set"  gardener, 
who  acted  as  the  ladies'  muleteer,  and  the  recital  of  the 
indiscretions  by  which  he  was  betrayed  into  temporary  de- 
sertion of  his  duties.  The  whole  scene  is  Chaucerian  in 
its  sharpness  of  outline  and  translucency  of  atmosphere: 
though  there,  unfortunately,  the  resemblance  ends.  Sterne's 
manner  of  saying  what  we  now  leave  unsaid  is  as  unlike 
Chaucer's,  and  as  unlike  for  the  worse,  as  it  can  pos- 
sibly be. 

Still,  a  certain  amount  of  this  clement  of  the  non  nomi- 


VI.]         "TRISTRAM  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  Yllf  AXD  VIII.  8'J 

nandum  must  be  compounded  for,  one  regrets  to  say,  in 
nearly  every  cLapter  that  Sterne  ever  wrote ;  and  there- 
is  certainly  less  than  the  average  amount  of  it  in  the 
seventh  volume.  Then,  again,  this  volume  contains  the 
famous  scene  ■svith  the  ass — the  live  and  genuinely  touch- 
ing, and  not  the  dead  and  fictitiously  pathetic,  animal ; 
and  that  perfect  piece  of  comic  dialogue — the  interview 
between  the  puzzled  English  traveller  and  the  French  com- 
missary of  the  posts.  To  have  suggested  this  scene  is,  per- 
haps, the  sole  claim  of  the  absurd  fiscal  system  of  the  An- 
cien  regime  upon  the  grateful  remembrance  of  the  world. 
A  scheme  of  taxation  which  exacted  posting-charges  from 
a  traveller  who  proposed  to  continue  his  journey  by  water, 
possesses  a  natural  ingredient  of  drollery  infused  into  its 
mere  vexatiousness ;  but  a  whole  volume  of  satire  could 
hardly  put  its  essential  absurdity  in  a  stronger  light  than 
is  thrown  upon  it  in  the  short  conversation  between  the 
astonished  Tristram  and  the  ofiicer  of  the  fisc,  who  had 
just  handed  him  a  little  bill  for  six  livres  four  sous : 

*'  •  Upon  -what  account  ?'  said  I. 

" '  'Tis  upon  the  part  of  the  King,'  said  the  commissary,  heaviug 
up  his  shoulders. 

"  '  My  good  friend,'  quoth  I, '  as  sure  as  I  am  I,  and  you  are  you — ' 

"  '  And  who  are  you  ?'  he  said. 

"'Don't  puzzle  me,'  said  I.  'But  it  is  an  indubitable  verity,'  I 
continued,  addressing  myself  to  the  commissary,  changing  only  the 
form  of  my  asseveration,  'that  I  owe  the  King  of  France  notliiug  but 
my  good-will,  for  he  is  a  very  honest  man,  and  I  wish  him  all  the  health 
and  pastime  in  the  world.' 

"  '  Pardonnez-moi,'  replied  the  commissary,  '  You  are  indebted  to 
him  six  livres  four  sous  for  the  next  post  from  hence  to  St.  Fons,  on 
your  route  to  Avignon,  which  being  a  post  royal,  you  pay  double  for 
the  horses  and  postilion,  otherwise  'twould  have  amounted  to  no  more 
than  three  livres  two  sous.' 

" '  But  I  dou't  go  by  land,'  said  L 
5 


90  STERXE.  [chap. 

" '  You  may  if  you  please,'  replied  the  commissary, 

'' '  Your  most  obedient  servant,'  said  I,  making  him  a  low  bow. 

"  The  commissary,  with  all  the  sincerity  of  grave  good-breeding, 
made  me  one  as  low  again.  I  never  was  more  disconcerted  by  a  bow 
in  my  life.  '  The  devil  take  the  serious  character  of  these  people,' 
said  I,  aside ;  '  they  understand  no  more  of  irony  than  this.'  The 
comparison  was  standing  close  by  with  her  panniers,  but  something 
sealed  up  my  lips.     I  could  not  pronounce  the  name. 

" '  Sir,'  said  I,  collecting  myself,  '  it  is  not  my  intention  to  take 
post.' 

"  '  But  you  may,'  said  he,  persisting  in  his  first  reply.  '  You  may 
if  you  choose.' 

"  'And  I  may  take  salt  to  my  pickled  herring  if  I  choose.^  But  I 
do  not  choose.' 

"  '  But  you  must  pay  for  it,  whether  you  do  or  no.' 

" '  Ay,  for  the  salt,'  said  I,  '  I  know.' 

"  'And  for  the  post,  too,'  added  ho. 

"  '  Defend  me !'  cried  I.  '  I  travel  by  water.  I  am  going  down  the 
Rhone  this  very  afternoon ;  my  baggage  is  in  the  boat,  and  I  have 
actually  paid  nine  livres  for  my  passage.' 

"  '  C'est  tout  egal — 'tis  all  one,'  said  he. 

"  '  Bon  Dieu  !  What !  pay  for  the  way  I  go  and  for  the  way  1  do 
not  go  ?' 

"  '  C'est  tout  egal,'  replied  the  commissary. 

'"The  devil  it  is  !'  said  I.  '  But  I  will  go  to  ten  thousand  Bastilles 
first.  0,  England !  England !  thou  land  of  liberty  and  climate  of 
good-sense  !  thou  tenderest  of  mothers  and  gentlest  of  nurses  !'  cried 

^  It  is  the  penalty — I  suppose  the  just  penalty — paid  by  habitually 
extravagant  humourists,  that  meaning  not  being  always  expected  of 
them,  it  is  not  always  sought  by  their  readers  with  sufiicient  care. 
Anyhow,  it  may  be  suspected  that  this  retort  of  Tristram's  is  too  often 
passed  over  as  a  mere  random  absurdity  designed  for  his  interlocu- 
tor's mystification,  and  that  its  extremely  felicitous  pertinence  to  the 
question  in  dispute  is  thus  overlooked.  The  point  of  it,  of  course,  is 
that  the  business  in  which  the  commissary  was  then  engaged  was 
precisely  analogous  to  that  of  exacting  salt  dues  from  perverse  per- 
sons who  were  impoverishing  the  revenue  by  possessing  herrings  al- 
ready pickled. 


VI.]         "TRISTRAM  SIIAXDY,"  VOLS.  VII.  AND  YIII.  91 

I,  kneeling  upon  one  knee  as  I  was  beginning  my  apostrophe — when 
the  director  of  Madame  L.  Blanc's  conscience  coming  in  at  that  in- 
stant, and  seeing  a  person  in  black,  with  a  face  as  pale  as  ashes,  at 
bis  devotions,  asked  if  I  stood  in  want  of  the  aids  of  the  Church. 

"'I  go  by  water,'  said  I,  *and  here's  another  will  be  for  making 
me  pay  for  going  by  oil.'  " 

The  coiiimissaiT,  of  course,  remains  obdurate,  and  Tris- 
tram protests  that  the  treatment  to  which  he  is  being  sub- 
jected is  "  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature,  contrary  to  rea- 
son, contrary  to  tlie  Gospel :" 

*'  'But  not  to  this,'  said  he,  putting  a  printed  paper  into  my  hand. 

'"De  par  le  Roi.'  "Tis  a  pithy  prolegomenon,'  quoth  I,  and  so 
read  on.  .  .  .  'By  all  which  it  appears,'  quoth  I,  having  read  it  over 
a  little  too  rapidly,  '  that  if  a  man  sets  out  in  a  post-chaise  for  Paris, 
he  must  go  on  travelling  in  one  all  the  days  of  his  life,  or  pay  for  it.' 

'"Excuse  me,'  said  the  commissary,  'the  spirit  of  the  ordinance  is 
this,  that  if  you  set  out  with  an  intention  of  running  post  from  Paris 
to  Avignon,  &c.,  you  shall  not  change  that  intention  or  mode  of  trav- 
elling without  first  satisfying  the  fermiers  for  two  posts  further  than 
the  place  you  repent  at;  and  'tis  founded,'  continued  he,  '  upon  this, 
that  the  revenues  are  not  to  fall  short  through  your  fickleness.' 

" '  0,  by  heavens !'  cried  I,  '  if  fickleness  is  taxable  in  France,  we 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  make  the  best  peace  we  can.' 

"  And  so  the  peace  was  made." 

And  the  volume  ends  with  the  dance  of  villagers  on 
"  the  road  between  Xismes  and  Lunel,  where  is  the  best 
Muscatto  wine  in  all  France  " — that  charming  little  idyll 
which  won  the  unwilling  admiration  of  the  least  friendly 
of  Sterne's  critics.^ 

With  the  close  of  this  volume  the  shadowy  Tristram 
disappears  altogether  from  the  scene ;  and  even  the  clear- 
ly-sketched figures  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Shandy  recede  some- 
v.liat  into  the  background.  The  courtship  of  my  Uncle 
'  Thackeray:  Enf/Ush  Humourists^  vol.  x.  p.  568,  ed.  1879. 


92  STERNE.  [cuap. 

Toby  forms  the  whole  motif,  and  indeed  almost  the  entire 
substance,  of  the  next  volume.  Of  this  famous  episode 
in  the  novel  a  great  deal  has  been  said  and  written,  and 
much  of  the  praise  bestowed  upon  it  is  certainly  deserved. 
The  artful  coquetries  of  the  fascinating  widow,  and  the 
gradual  capitulation  of  the  Captain,  are  studied  with  admi- 
rable power  of  humorous  insight,  and  described  with  in- 
finite grace  and  skill.  But  there  is,  perhaps,  no  episode  in 
the  novel  which  brings  out  what  may  be  called  the  per- 
versity of  Sterne's  animalism  in  a  more  exasperating  way. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  amount  of  this  element  as  the  time, 
place,  and  manner  in  which  it  makes  its  presence  felt.  The 
senses  must,  of  course,  play  their  part  in  all  love  affairs,  ex- 
cept those  of  the  angels — or  the  triangles ;  and  such  w-riters 
as  Byron,  for  instance,  are  quite  free  from  the  charge  of 
over-spiritualizing  their  description  of  the  passion.  Yet 
one  might  safely  say  that  there  is  far  less  to  repel  a 
healthy  mind  in  the  poet's  account  of  the  amour  of  Juan 
and  Haidee  than  is  to  be  found  in  many  a  passage  in  this 
volume.  It  is  not  merely  that  one  is  the  poetry  and  the 
other  the  prose  of  the  sexual  passion :  the  distinction  goes 
deeper,  and  points  to  a  fundamental  difference  of  attitude 
towards  their  subject  in  the  two  writers'  minds. 

The  success  of  this  instalment  of  Tristram  Shand}j  ap- 
pears to  have  been  slightly  greater  than  that  of  the  pre- 
ceding one.  Writing  from  London,  where  he  was  once 
more  basking  in  the  sunshine  of  social  popularity,  to  Gar- 
rick,  then  in  Paris,  he  says  (March  16,  1765) :  "I  have  had 
a  lucrative  campaign  here.  Shandy  sells  well,"  and  "  I  am 
taxing  the  public  with  two  more  volumes  of  sermons,  which 
will  more  than  double  the  gains  of  Shandy.  It  goes  into 
the  world  with  a  prancing  list  de  toute  la  noblesse,  which 
will  bring  me  in  three  hundred  pounds,  exclusive  of  the 


Yi.]         "  TRISTRAil  SHAXDY,"  VOLS.  VII.  AND  VIII.  93 

sale  of  the  copy."  The  list  was,  indeed,  extensive  and  dis- 
tinguished enough  to  justify  the  curious  epithet  which  he 
applies  to  it ;  but  the  cavalcade  of  noble  names  continued 
to  "  prance  "  for  some  considerable  time  without  advancing. 
Yet  he  had  good  reasons,  according  to  his  own  account,  for 
wishing  to  push  on  their  publication.  His  parsonage-house 
at  Sutton  had  just  been  burnt  down  through  the  careless- 
ness of  one  of  his  curate's  household,  with  a  loss  to  Sterne 
of  some  350/.  "As  soon  as  I  can,"  he  says,  "I  must  re- 
build it,  but  I  lack  the  means  at  present."  Nevertheless, 
the  new  sermons  continued  to  hang  fire.  Again,  in  April 
he  describes  the  subscription  list  as  "  the  most  splendid  list 
which  ever  pranced  before  a  book  since  subscription  came 
into  fashion ;"  but  though  the  volumes  which  it  was  to 
usher  into  the  world  were  then  spoken  of  as  about  to  be 
printed  "  very  soon,"  he  has  again  in  July  to  write  of  them 
only  as  "  forthcoming  in  September,  though  I  fear  not  in 
time  to  bring  them  with  me  "  to  Paris.  And,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  they  do  not  seem  to  have  made  their  appearance 
until  after  Sterne  had  quitted  England  on  his  second  and 
last  Continental  journey.  The  full  subscription  list  may 
have  had  the  efiect  of  relaxing  his  energies ;  but  the  sub- 
scribers had  no  reason  to  complain  when,  in  1766,  the  vol- 
umes at  last  appeared. 

The  reception  given  to  the  fir.st  batch  of  sermons  which 
Sterne  had  published  was  quite  favourable  enough  to  en- 
courage a  repetition  of  the  experiment,  lie  was  shrewd 
enough,  however,  to  perceive  that  on  this  second  occasion 
a  somewhat  different  sort  of  article  would  be  required.  In 
the  first  flush  of  Tristram  Shandy^s  success,  and  in  the 
first  piquancy  of  the  contrast  between  the  grave  profession 
of  the  writer  and  the  unbounded  license  of  the  book,  he 
could  safely  reckon  on  as  large  and  curious  a  public  for  any 


94  STERNE.  [chap. 

sermons  -wliatever  from  tlie  pen  of  Mr.  Yorick.  There 
was  no  need  that  the  humourist  in  his  pulpit  should  at  all 
resemble  the  humourist  at  his  desk,  or,  indeed,  that  he 
should  be  in  any  way  an  impressive  or  commanding  figure. 
The  great  desire  of  the  world  was  to  know  what  he  did 
resemble  in  this  new  and  incongruous  position.  Men 
wished  to  see  what  the  queer,  sly  face  looked  like  over 
a  velvet  cushion,  in  the  assurance  that  the  sight  would  be 
a  strange  and  interesting  one,  at  any  rate.  Five  years  af- 
terwards, however,  the  case  was  different.  The  public  then 
had  already  had  one  set  of  sermons,  and  had  discovered 
that  the  humorous  Mr.  Sterne  was  not  a  very  different  man 
in  the  pulpit  from  the  dullest  and  most  decorous  of  his 
brethren.  Such  discoveries  as  these  are  instructive  to 
make,  but  not  attractive  to  dwell  upon  ;  and  Sterne  was 
fully  alive  to  the  probability  that  there  would  be  no  great 
demand  for  a  volume  of  sermons  which  should  only  illus- 
trate for  the  second  time  the  fact  that  he  could  be  as  com- 
monplace as  his  neighbour.  He  saw  that  in  future  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Yorick  must  a  little  more  resemble  the  author  of 
Tristrmn  Shandy,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  from  1760 
onwards  he  composed  his  parochial  sermons  with  especial 
attention  to  this  mode  of  qualifying  them  for  republication. 
There  is,  at  any  rate,  no  slight  critical  difficulty  in  believ- 
ing that  the  bulk  of  the  sermons  of  1766  can  be  assigned 
to  the  same  literary  period  as  the  sermons  of  1761.  The 
one  set  seems  as  manifestly  to  belong  to  the  post-Shandian 
as  the  other  does  to  the  pre-Shandian  era;  and  in  some, 
indeed,  of  the  apparently  kiter  productions  the  daring 
quaintness  of  style  and  illustration  is  carried  so  far  that, 
except  for  the  fact  that  Sterne  had  no  time  to  spare  for 
the  composition  of  sermons  not  intended  for  professional 
use,  one  would  have  been  disposed  to  believe  that  they 


Ti.]  SECOND  SET  OF  SEEMOXS.  95 

neither  were  nor  were  meant  to  be  delivered  from  the  pul- 
pit at  all/  Throughout  all  of  them,  however,  Sterne's 
new-found  literary  power  displays  itself  in  a  vigour  of  ex- 
pression and  vivacity  of  illustration  which  at  least  serve  to 
make  the  sermons  of  1766  considerably  more  entertain- 
inof  readino-  than  those  of  1761.  In  the  first  of  the  latter 
series,  for  instance — the  sermon  on  Shimei — a  discourse 
in  which  there  are  no  very  noticeable  sallies  of  unclerical 
humour,  the  quality  of  liveliness  is  very  conspicuously 
present.  The  preacher's  view  of  the  character  of  Shimei, 
and  of  his  behaviour  to  David,  is  hardly  that,  perhaps,  of 
a  competent  historical  critic,  and  in  treating  of  the  Ben- 
jamite's  insults  to  the  King  of  Israel  he  appears  to  take 
no  account  of  the  blood-feud  between  the  house  of  David 
and  the  clan  to  which  the  railer  belonged ;  just  as  in  com- 
menting on  Shimei's  subsequent  and  most  abject  submis- 
sion to  the  victorious  monarch,  Sterne  lays  altogether  too 
much  stress  upon  conduct  which  is  indicative,  not  so  much 
of  any  exceptional  meanness  of  disposition,  as  of  the  or- 
dinary suppleness  of  the  Oriental  put  in  fear  of  his  life. 
However,  it  makes  a  more  piquant  and  dramatic  picture  to 
represent  Shimei  as  a  type  of  the  wretch  of  insolence  and 
servility  compact,  with  a  tongue  ever  ready  to  be  loosed 
against  the  unfortunate,  and  a  knee  ever  ready  to  be  bent 
to  the  strong.     And  thus  he  moralizes  on  his  conception : 

"  There  is  not  a  character  in  the  world  which  has  so  bad  an  influ- 
ence upon  it  as  this  of  Shimei.  While  power  meets  with  honest 
checks,  and  the  evils  of  life  with  honest  refuge,  the  world  will  never 
be  undone ;  but  thou,  Shimei,  hast  sapped  it  at  both  extremes  :  for 
thou  corruptest  prosperity,  and  'tis  thou  who  hast  broken  the  heart 

^  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  indeed,  asserts  as  a  fact  that  some  at  least  of 
these  sermons  were  actually  composed  in  the  capacity  of  Utttratcur 
and  not  of  divine — for  the  press  and  not  for  the  pulpit. 


96  STERNE.  [cnAP. 

of  poverty.  And  so  long  as  worthless  spirits  can  be  ambitious  ones 
'tis  a  character  we  never  shall  want.  Oh !  it  infests  the  court,  the 
camp,  the  cabinet ;  it  infests  the  Church.  Go  where  you  will,  in 
every  quarter,  in  every  profession,  you  see  a  Shimei  following  the 
wheels  of  the  fortunate  through  thick  mire  and  clay.  Haste,  Shimei, 
haste  !  or  thou  wilt  be  undone  forever.  Shimei  girdeth  up  his  loins 
and  speedeth  after  him.  Behold  the  hand  which  governs  everything 
takes  the  wheel  from  his  chariot,  so  that  he  who  driveth,  driveth  on 
heavih'.  Shimei  doubles  his  speed  ;  but  'tis  the  contrary  way :  he  flies 
like  the  wind  over  a  sandy  desert.  .  .  .  Stay,  Shimei !  'tis  your  patron, 
your  friend,  your  benefactor,  the  man  who  has  saved  you  from  the 
dunghill.  'Tis  all  one  to  Shimei.  Shimei  is  the  barometer  of  every 
man's  fortune  ;  marks  the  rise  and  fall  of  it,  with  all  the  variations 
from  scorching  hot  to  freezing  cold  upon  his  countenance  that  the 
simile  will  admit  of.^  Is  a  cloud  upon  tliy  affairs?  See,  it  hangs 
over  Shimei's  brow  !  Hast  thou  been  spoken  for  to  the  king  or  the 
captain  of  the  host  without  success?  Look  not  into  the  Court  Cal- 
endar, the  vacancy  is  filled  in  Shimei's  face.  Art  thou  in  debt,  though 
not  to  Shimei?  No  matter.  The  worst  officer  of  the  law  shall  not 
be  more  insolent.  What,  then,  Shimei,  is  the  fault  of  poverty  so 
black  ?  is  it  of  so  general  concern  that  thou  and  all  thy  family  must 
rise  up  as  one  man  to  reproach  it  ?  When  it  lost  everything,  did  it 
lose  the  right  to  pity  too  ?  Or  did  he  who  maketh  poor  as  well  as 
maketh  rich  strip  it  of  its  natural  powers  to  mollify  the  heart  and 
supple  the  temper  of  your  race  ?  Trust  me  you  have  much  to  an- 
swer for.  It  is  this  treatment  which  it  has  ever  met  with  from  spir- 
its like  yours  which  has  gradually  taught  the  world  to  look  upon  it 
as  the  greatest  of  evils,  and  shun  it  as  the  worst  disgrace.  And  what 
is  it,  I  beseech  you — what  is  it  that  men  will  not  do  to  keep  clear  of 
so  sore  an  imputation  and  punishment  ?  Is  it  not  to  fly  from  this 
that  he  rises  early,  late  takes  rest,  and  eats  the  bread  of  carefulness  ? 
that  he  plots,  contrives,  swears,  lies,  shuffles,  puts  on  all  shapes,  tries 
all  garments,  wears  them  Avith  this  or  that  side  outward,  just  as  it 
may  favour  his  escape  ?" 

And  tlioiigli  the  sermon  ends  in  orthodox  fasLion,  with 
an  assurance  that,  in  spite  of  the  Shimeis  by  whom  we 

^  Which  are  not  many  in  the  case  of  a  barometer. 


yi.]  SECOXD  SET  OF  SERMOXS.  9*7 

are  surrounded,  it  is  in  our  power  to  "  ]aj  the  foundation 
of  our  peace  (wliere  it  ought  to  be)  within  our  own 
hearts,"  yet  the  preacher  can,  in  the  midst  of  his  earlier 
reflections,  permit  himself  the  quaintly  pessimistic  out- 
burst :  "  O  Shimei !  would  to  Heaven,  when  thou  wast 
slain,  that  all  thy  family  had  been  slain  with  thee,  and 
not  one  of  thy  resemblance  left !  But  ye  have  multiplied 
exceedingly,  and  replenished  the  earth ;  and  if  I  prophesy 
rightly,  ye  will  in  the  end  subdue  it." 

Nowhere,  however,  does  the  man  of  the  world  reveal 
himself  with  more  strangely  comical  effect  under  the/ 
gown  of  the  divine  than  in  the  sermon  on  "  The  Prod- 
igal Son."  The  repentant  spendthrift  has  returned  to 
his  father's  house,  and  is  about  to  confess  his  follies. 
But— 

"Alas !     How  shall  lie  tell  his  story  ? 

"  Ye  who  have  trod  this  round,  tell  mc  in  what  words  he  shall  give 
in  to  his  father  the  sad  items  of  his  extravagance  and  folly :  the 
feasts  and  banquets  which  he  gave  to  whole  cities  in  the  East ;  the 
costs  of  Asiatic  rarities,  and  of  Asiatic  cooks  to  dress  them ;  the  ex- 
penses of  singing  men  and  singing  women  ;  the  flute,  the  harp,  the 
sackbut,  and  all  kinds  of  music ;  the  dress  of  the  Persian  Court  how 
magnificent !  their  slaves  how  numerous  !  their  chariots,  their  homes, 
their  pictures,  their  furniture,  what  immense  sums  they  had  devour- 
ed !  what  expectations  from  strangers  of  condition  !  what  exactions  ! 
How  shall  the  youth  make  his  father  comprehend  that  he  was  cheat- 
ed at  Damascus  by  one  of  the  best  men  in  the  world ;  tliat  he  had 
lent  a  part  of  his  substance  to  a  friend  at  Xineveh,  who  had  fled  off 
with  it  to  the  Ganges  ;  that  a  whore  of  Babylon  had  swallowed  his 
best  pearl,  and  anointed  the  whole  city  with  his  balm  of  Gilead  ;  that 
he  had  been  sold  by  a  man  of  honour  for  twenty  shekels  of  silver  to 
a  vrorker  in  graven  images ;  that  the  images  he  had  purchased  pro- 
duced him  nothing,  that  they  could  not  be  transported  across  the 
Avilderness,  and  had  been  burnt  with  fire  at  Shusan ;  that  the  apes 
and  peacocks  which  he  had  sent  for  from  Thar-sis  lay  dead  upon  his 


98  STERNE.  [chap. 

hands  ;  that  the  mummies  had  not  been  dead  long  enough  which  he 
had  brought  from  Egypt ;  that  all  had  gone  wrong  from  the  day  he 
forsook  his  father's  house  ?" 

All  tins,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  pretty  lively  for  a  ser- 
mon. But  hear  the  reverend  gentleman  once  more,  in  the 
same  discourse,  and  observe  the  characteristic  coolness 
^vith  which  he  touches,  only  to  drop,  what  may  be  called 
the  "  professional "  moral  of  the  parable,  and  glides  ofiE 
into  a  train  of  interesting,  but  thoroughly  mundane,  reflec- 
tions, suggested — or  rather,  supposed  in  courtesy  to  have 
been  suggested — by  the  text.  "  I  know  not,"  he  says, 
"  whether  it  would  be  a  subject  of  much  edification  to  con- 
vince you  here  that  our  Saviour,  by  the  Prodigal  Son,  par- 
ticularly pointed  out  those  who  were  sinners  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, and  were  recovered  by  divine  grace  to  repentance; 
and  that  by  the  elder  brother  he  intended  manifestly  the 
more  froward  of  the  Jews,"  ifcc.  But,  whether  it  would 
edify  you  or  not,  he  goes  on,  in  effect,  to  say,  I  do  not 
propose  to  provide  you  with  edification  in  that  kind. 
"  These  uses  have  been  so  ably  set  forth  in  so  many  good 
sermons  upon  the  Prodigal  Son  that  I  shall  turn  aside 
from  them  at  present,  and  content  myself  with  some  re- 
flections upon  that  fatal  passion  which  led  him — and  so 
many  thousands  after  the  example — to  gather  all  he  had 
together  and  take  his  journey  into  a  far  country."  In 
other  w^ords,  "  I  propose  to  make  the  parable  a  peg  whereon 
to  hang  a  few  observations  on  (what  does  the  reader  sup- 
pose ?)  the  practice  of  sending  young  men  upon  the  Grand 
Tour,  accompanied  by  a  '  bear-leader,'  and  herein  of  the 
various  kinds  of  bear-leaders,  and  the  services  which  they 
do,  and  do  not,  render  to  their  charges ;  with  a  few  words 
on  society  in  Continental  cities,  and  a  true  view  of  '  letters 
of  introduction.' "     That  is  literally  the  substance  of  the 


VI.]  SECOND  SET  OF  SERMOXS.  99 

remainder  of  the  sermon.     And  thus  pleasantly  does  the 
preacher  play  ■svitli  his  curious  subject : 

*'  But  you  will  send  an  able  pilot  with  your  son — a  scholar.  If 
wisdom  can  speak  in  no  other  tDngue  but  Greek  or  Latin,  you  do 
well ;  or  if  mathematics  will  make  a  man  a  gentleman,  or  natural 
philosophy  but  teach  him  to  make  a  bow,  he  may  be  of  some  service 
in  introducing  your  son  into  good  societies,  and  supporting  him  in 
them  when  he  had  done.  But  the  upshot  will  be  generally  this,  that 
on  the  most  pressing  occasions  of  addresses,  if  he  is  not  a  mere  man 
of  reading,  the  unhappy  youth  will  have  the  tutor  to  carry,  and  not 
the  tutor  to  carry  him.  But  (let  us  say)  you  will  avoid  this  extreme  ; 
he  shall  be  escorted  by  one  who  knows  the  world,  not  only  from 
books  but  from  his  own  experience;  a  man  who  has  been  employed 
on  such  services,  and  thrice  '  made  the  tour  of  Europe  with  success ' 
— that  is,  without  breaking  his  own  or  his  pupil's  neck  ;  for  if  he  is 
such  as  my  eyes  have  seen,  some  broken  Swiss  valet  de  chambre,  some 
general  undertaker,  who  will  perform  the  journey  in  so  many  months, 
'if  God  permit,'  much  knowledge  will  not  accrue.  Some  profit,  at 
least :  he  will  learn  the  amount  to  a  halfpenny  of  every  stage  from 
Calais  to  Rome ;  he  will  be  carried  to  the  best  inns,  instructed  where 
there  is  the  best  wine,  and  sup  a  livre  cheaper  than  if  the  youth  had 
been  left  to  make  the  tour  and  the  bargain  himself.  Look  at  our 
governor,  I  beseech  you !  See,  he  is  an  inch  taller  as  he  relates  the 
advantages.  And  here  endeth  his  pride,  his  knowledge,  and  his  use. 
But  when  your  son  gets  abroad  he  will  be  taken  out  of  his  hand  by 
his  society  with  men  of  rank  and  letters,  with  whom  he  will  pass  the 
greatest  part  of  his  time." 

So  much  for  the  bear-leader ;  and  now  a  remark  or  two 
on  the  young  man's  chances  of  getting  into  good  foreign 
society  ;  and  then — the  benediction  : 

"  Let  me  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that  company  which  is  really 
good  is  very  rare  and  very  shy.  But  you  have  surmounted  this  dif- 
ficulty, and  procured  him  the  best  letters  of  recommendation  to  the 
most  eminent  and  respectable  in  every  capital.  And  I  answer  that 
he  will  obtain  all  by  them  which  courtesy  strictly  stands  obliged  to 


100  STERNE.  [chap. 

pay  on  such  occasions,  but  no  more.  There  is  nothing;  in  which  we 
arc  so  much  deceived  as  in  the  advantages  proposed  from  our  con- 
nexions and  discourse  with  the  hterati,  &c.,  in  foreign  parts,  espe- 
cially if  the  experiment  is  made  before  we  are  matured  by  years  or 
study.  Conversation  is  a  traffic ;  and  if  you  enter  it  without  some 
stock  of  knowledge  to  balance  the  account  perpetually  betwixt  you, 
the  trade  drops  at  once ;  and  this  is  the  reason,  however  it  may  be 
boasted  to  the  contrary,  why  travellers  have  so  httle  (especially  good) 
conversation  with  the  natives,  owing  to  their  suspicion,  or  perhaps 
conviction,  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  extracted  from  the  conversa- 
tion of  young  itinerants  worth  the  trouble  of  their  bad  language,  or 
the  interruption  of  their  visits." 

Very  true,  no  doubt,  and  excellently  well  put ;  but  we 
seem  to  have  got  some  distance,  in  spirit  at  any  rate,  from 
Luke  XV.  13;  and  it  is  with  somewhat  too  visible  effect, 
perhaps,  that  Sterne  forces  his  way  back  into  the  ortho- 
dox routes  of  pulpit  disquisition.  The  youth,  disappoint- 
ed with  his  reception  by  "  the  literati,"  &c.,  seeks  "  an 
easier  society;  and  as  had  company  is  always  ready,  and 
ever  lying  in  wait,  the  career  is  soon  finished,  and  the 
poor  prodigal  returns — the  same  object  of  pity  with  the 
prodigal  in  the  Gospel."  Hardly  a  good  enough  "  tag," 
perhaps,  to  reconcile  the  ear  to  the  "And  now  to,"  (fcc, 
as  a  fittiug  close  to  this  pointed  little  essay  in  the  style  of 
the  Chesterfield  Letters.  There  is  much  internal  evidence 
to  show  that  this  so-called  sermon  was  written  either  after 
Sterne's  visit  to  or  during  his  stay  in  France ;  and  there 
is  strong  reason,  I- think,  to  suppose  that  it  was  in  reality 
neither  intended  for  a  sermon  nor  actually  delivered  from 
the  pulpit. 

No  other  of  his  sermons  has  quite  so  much  vivacity  as 
this.  But  in  the  famous  discourse  upon  an  unlucky  text 
— the  sermon  preached  at  the  chapel  of  the  English  Em- 
bassy, in  Paris — there  arc  touches  of  nnclerical  raillery  not 


VI.]  SECOXD  SET  OF  SERMOXS.  101 

a  few.  Thus  :  "  AYhat  a  noise,"  he  exclaims,  "  among  the 
simulants  of  the  various  virtues !  .  .  .  Behold  Humility, 
become  so  out  of  mere  pride ;  Chastity,  never  once  in 
harm's  way ;  and  Courage,  like  a  Spanish  soldier  upon  an 
ItaUan  stage — a  bladder  full  of  wind.  Ilush  !  the  sound 
of  that  trumpet !  Let  not  my  soldier  run  I'  tis  some  good 
Christian  giving  alms.  0  Pity,  thou  gentlest  of  human 
passions!  soft  and  tender  are  thy  notes,  and  ill  accord 
they  with  so  loud  an  instrument."' 

Here,  again,  is  a  somewhat  bold  saying  for  a  divine : 
"  But,  to  avoid  all  commonplace  cant  as  much  as  I  can  on 
this  head,  I  will  forbear  to  say,  because  I  do  not  think, 
that  'tis  a  breach  of  Christian  charity  to  think  or  speak 
ill  of  our  neighbour.  T\'e  cannot  avoid  it :  our  opinion 
must  follow  the  evidence,"  kc.  And  a  little  later  on, 
commenting  on  the  insinuation  conveyed  in  Satan's  ques- 
tion, "Does  Job  serve  God  for  nought?"  he  says:  "It  is 
a  bad  picture,  and  done  by  a  terrible  master ;  and  yet  we 
are  always  copying  it.  Does  a  man  from  real  conviction 
of  heart  forsake  his  vices  ?  The  position  is  not  to  be  al- 
lowed=  Xo ;  his  vices  have  forsaken  him.  Does  a  pure 
virgin  fear  God,  and  say  her  prayers  ?  She  is  in  her  cli- 
macteric ?  Docs  humility  clothe  and  educate  the  unknown 
orphan  ?  Poverty,  thou  hast  no  genealogies.  See  I  is  he 
not  the  father  of  the  child  i"  In  another  sermon  he 
launches  out  into  quaintly  contemptuous  criticism  of  a 
religious  movement  which  he  was  certainly  the  last  person 
in  the  world  to  understand — to  wit,  Methodism.  lie  asks 
whether,  "  when  a  poor,  disconsolated,  drooping  creature 
is  terrified  from  all  enjoyment,  prays  without  ceasing  till 
his  imagination  is  heated,  fasts  and  mortifies  and  mopes 
till  his  body  is  in  as  bad  a  plight  as  his  mind,  it  is  a  won- 
der that  the  mechanical  disturbances  and  conflicts  of  an 


102  STERXE.  [chap.  ti. 

empty  belly,  interpreted  by  an  empty  head,  should  be  mis- 
took for  workings  of  a  different  kind  from  what  they 
are?"  Other  sermons  reflect  the  singularly  bitter  anti- 
Catholic  feeling  which  was  characteristic  even  of  indiffer- 
entism  in  those  days — at  any  rate  amongst  Whig  divines. 
But  in  most  of  them  one  is  liable  to  come  at  any  moment 
across  one  of  those  strange  sallies  to  which  Gray  alluded, 
when  he  said  of  the  effect  of  Sterne's  sermons  upon  a 
reader  that  "  you  often  see  him  tottering  on  the  verge  of 
laughter,  and  ready  to  throw  his  periwig  in  the  face  of 
the  audience." 


CHAPTER   Vir. 

FRANCE  AXD   ITALY. MEETING  WITH  WIFE   AND  DAUGHTER. 

RETURN  TO  ENGLAND. "  TRISTRAM    SHANDY,"  VOL.  IX. 

"the   SENTIMENTAL  JOURNEY." 

(1765-1768.) 

In  the  first  week  of  October,  1765,  or  a  few  days  later, 
Sterne  set  out  on  what  was  afterwards  to  become  famous 
as  the  "Sentimental  Journey  through  France  and  Italy," 
Xot,  of  course,  that  all  the  materials  for  that  celebrated 
piece  of  literary  travel  were  collected  on  this  occasion. 
From  London  as  far  as  Lyons  his  way  lay  by  a  route 
which  he  had  already  traversed  three  years  before,  and 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  at  least  some  of  the  scenes 
in  the  Sentimental  Journey  were  drawn  from  observation 
made  on  his  former  visit.  His  stay  in  Paris  was  shorter 
this  year  than  it  had  been  on  the  previous  occasion.  A 
month  after  leaving  England  he  was  at  Pont  Beauvoisin, 
and  by  the  middle  of  November  he  had  reached  Turin. 
From  this  city  he  writes,  with  his  characteristic  simplici- 
ty:  "I  am  very  happy,  and  have  found  my  way  into  a  / 
dozen  houses  already.  To-morrow  I  am  to  be  presented  j 
to  the  King,  and  when  that  ceremony  is  over  I  shall  have 
my  hands  full  of  engagements."  From  Turin  he  went  on, 
by  way  of  Milan,  Parma,  Piacenza,  and  Bologna,  to  Flor- 
ence, where,  after  three  days'  stay,  "to  dine  with  our 
Plenipo.,"  he  continued  his  journey  to  Piome.     Here,  and 


104  STERNE.  [chap. 

at  Naples,  lie  passed  tlie  winter  of  l765-'66/  and  pro- 
longed his  stay  in  Italy  until  the  ensuing  spring  was  well 
advanced.  In  the  month  of  May  he  was  again  on  his  way 
home,  through  France,  and  had  had  a  meeting,  after  two 
years'  separation  from  them,  with  his  wife  and  daughter. 
His  account  of  it  to  Hall  Stevenson  is  curious :  "  Never 
man,"  he  writes,  *'  has  been  such  a  wild-goose  chase  after 
his  wife  as  I  have  been.  After  having  sought  her  in  five  or 
six  different  towns,  I  found  her  at  last  in  Franche  Comte. 
Poor  woman  !"  he  adds,  "  she  w^as  very  cordial,  &c."  The 
&c.  is  charming.  But  her  cordiality  had  evidently  no  ten- 
dency to  deepen  into  any  more  impassioned  sentiment,  for 
she  "  begged  to  stay  another  year  or  so."  As  to  "  my 
Lydia" — the  real  cause,  we  must  suspect,  of  Sterne's  hav- 
ing turned  out  of  his  road — she,  he  says, "  pleases  me  much. 
I  found  her  greatly  improved  in  everything  I  wished  her." 
As  to  himself:  "I  am  most  unaccountably  well,  and  most 
accountably  nonsensical.  'Tis  at  least  a  proof  of  good 
spirits,  which  is  a  sign  and  token,  in  these  latter  days,  that 
I  must  take  up  my  pen.  In  faith,  I  think  I  shall  die  with 
it  in  my  hand ;  but  I  shall  live  these  ten  years,  my  Antony, 
notwithstanding  the  fears  of  my  wife,  whom  I  left  most 
melancholy  on  that  account."  The  "  fears  "  and  the  mel- 
ancholy were,  alas!  to  be  justified,  rather  than  the  "good 
spirits ;"  and  the  shears  of  Atropos  were  to  close,  not  in 
ten  years,  but  in  little  more  than  twenty  months,  upon 
that  fragile  thread  of  life, 

'  It  was  on  this  tour  that  Sterne  picked  up  the  French  valet  La- 
fleur,  whom  he  introduced  as  a  character  into  the  Sentimental  Jour- 
ney^ but  Avhose  subsequently  published  recollections  of  the  tour  (if, 
indeed,  the  veritable  Lafleur  was  the  author  of  the  notes  from  which 
Scott  quotes  so  freely)  appear,  as  Mr.  Fitzgerald  has  pointed  out, 
from  internal  evidence  to  be  mostly  fictitious. 


yii.]  "TRISTRAM  SILVyDY,"  VOL.  IX.  105 

By  the  end  of  June  Le  was  back  ao-ain  in  his  Yorkshire 
home,  and  very  soon  after  had  settled  down  to  work  upon 
the  ninth  and  Jast  vohime  of  Tristram  Shanchj.  lie  was 
■writins:,  however,  as  it  should  seem,  under  something  more 
than  the  usual  distractions  of  a  man  with  two  establish- 
ments. Mrs.  Sterne  was  just  then  ill  at  Marseilles,  and  her 
husband — who,  to  do  him  justice,  was  always  properly  so- 
licitous for  her  material  comfort — was  busy  making  pro- 
vision for  her  to  change  her  quarters  to  Chalons.  He 
writes  to  M.  Panchaud,  at  Paris,  sending  fifty  pounds,  and 
begging  him  to  make  her  all  further  advances  that  might 
be  necessary.  "  I  have,"  he  says,  "  such  entire  confidence 
in  my  wife  that  she  spends  as  little  as  she  can,  though  she 
is  confined  to  no  particular  sum  .  .  .  and  you  may  rely — 
in  case  she  should  draw  for  fifty  or  a  hundred  pounds  ex- 
traordinary— that  it  and  every  demand  shall  be  punctually 
paid,  and  with  proper  thanks;  and  for  this  the  whole 
Shandian  family  are  ready  to  stand  security."  Later  on, 
too,  he  writes  that  "  a  young  nobleman  is  now  inaugurat- 
ing a  jaunt  with  me  for  six  weeks,  about  Christmas,  to  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain ;"  and  he  adds — in  a  tone  the  sin- 
cerity of  which  he  would  himself  have  probably  found  a 
difiiculty  in  gauging — "if  my  wife  should  grow  worse 
(having  had  a  very  poor  account  of  her  in  my  daughter's 
last),  I  cannot  think  of  her  being  without  me ;  and,  how- 
ever expensive  the  journey  would  be,  I  would  fly  to  Avign- 
on to  administer  consolation  to  her  and  my  poor  girl."' 

1  There  can  be  few  admirers  of  Sterne's  genius  who  would  not 
gladly  incline,  whenever  they  find  it  possible,  to  Mr.  Fitzgerald's  very 
indulgent  estimate  of  his  disposition.  But  this  is  only  one  of  many 
instances  in  which  the  charity  of  the  biographer  appears  to  me  to 
be,  if  the  expression  may  be  permitted,  unconscionable.  I  can,  at 
any  rate,  find  no  warrant  whatever  in  the  above  passage  for  the  too 


106  STERNE.  [chap. 

The  necessity  for  tins  flight,  however,  did  not  arise.  Bet- 
ter accounts  of  Mrs.  Sterne  arrived  a  few  weeks  hiter,  and 
tlie  husband's  consolations  were  not  required. 

Meanwhile  the  idyll  of  Captain  Shandy's  love-making 
was  gradually  approaching  completion ;  and  there  are  signs 
to  be  met  with — in  the  author's  correspondence,  that  is  to 
say,  and  not  in  the  work  itself — that  hh  was  somewhat  im- 
patient to  be  done  with  it,  at  any  rate  for  the  time.  "  I 
shall  publish,"  he  says,  "  late  in  this  year ;  and  the  next  I 
shall  begin  a  new  work  of  four  volumes,  which,  when  fin- 
ished, I  shall  continue  Tristram  with  fresli  spirit."  The 
new  work  in  four  volumes  (not  destined  to  get  beyond 
one)  was,  of  course,  the  Sentimental  Journey.  His  ninth 
volume  of  Tristram  Shandy  was  finished  by  the  end 
of  the  year,  and  at  Christmas  he  came  up  to  London,  after 
his  usual  practice,  to  see  to  its  publication  and  enjoy 
the  honours  of  its  reception.  The  book  passed  duly 
through  the  press,  and  in  the  last  days  of  January  was 
issued  the  announcement  of  its  immediate  appearance. 
Of  the  character  of  its  welcome  I  can  find  no  other  ev- 
idence than  that  of  Sterne  himself,  in  a  letter  addressed 
to  M.  Panchaud  some  fortnight  after  the  book  appeared. 
"  'Tis  liked  the  best  of  all  here ;"  but,  with  whatever  ac- 
curacy this  may  have  expressed  the  complimentary  opin- 
ion of  friends,  or  even  the  well-considered  judgment  of 
critics,  one  can  hardly  believe  that  it  enjoyed  anything 
like  the  vogue  of  the  former  volumes.  Sterne,  however, 
would  be  the  less  concerned  for  this,  that  his  head  was  at 
the  moment  full  of  his  new  venture.    "  I  am  going,"  ho 

kindly  suggestion  that  "Sterne  was  actually  negotiating  a  journey  to 
Paris  as  '  bear-leader '  to  a  young  nobleman  (an  odious  office,  to  which 
he  had  special  aversion),  hi  order  that  he  might  with  economy  fly 
over  to  Avignon." 


Til.]  "THE  SEXTDIEXTAL  JOURNEY."  107 

writes,  "  to  publisli  A  Sentimental  Journey  through  France 
and  Italy.  The  undertaking  is  protected  and  higbly  en- 
courao-ed  bv  all  our  noblesse.  'Tis  subscribed  for  at  a 
great  rate  ;  'twill  be  an  original,  in  large  quarto,  the  sub- 
scription half  a  guinea.  If  you  (Panchaud)  can  procure 
me  the  honour  of  a  few  names  of  men  of  science  or 
fashion,  I  shall  thank  you  :  they  will  appear  in  good  com- 
pany, as  all  the  nobility  here  have  honoured  me  with  their 
names."  As  was  usual  with  him,  however,  he  postponed 
commencing  it  until  he  should  have  returned  to  Coxwold ; 
and,  as  was  equally  usual  with  him,  he  found  it  difficult  to 
tear  himself  away  from  the  delights  of  London.  More- 
over, there  was  in  the  present  instance  a  special  difficulty, 
arising  out  of  an  affair  upon  which,  as  it  has  relations  with 
the  history  of  Sterne's  literary  work,  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble, even  in  the  most  strictly  critical  and  least  general  of 
biographies,  to  observe  complete  silence.  I  refer,  of  course, 
to  the  famous  and  furious  flirtation  with  Mrs.  Draper — 
the  Eliza  of  the  Yorick  and  Eliza  Letters.  Of  the  affair 
itself  but  little  need  be  said.  I  have  already  stated  my 
own  views  on  the  general  subject  of  Sterne's  love  affairs; 
and  I  feel  no  inducement  to  discuss  the  question  of  their 
innocence  or  otherwise  in  relation  to  this  particular  amou- 
rette. I  will  only  say  that  were  it  technically  as  innocent  as 
you  please,  the  mean  which  must  be  found  between  Thack- 
eray's somewhat  too  hai'sh  and  Mr.  Fitzgerald's  consider- 
ably too  indulgent  judgment  on  it  will  lie,  it  seems  to  me, 
decidedly  nearer  to  the  former  than  to  the  latter's  extreme. 
This  episode  of  violently  sentimental  philandering  with  an 
Indian  "  grass  widow  "  was,  in  any  case,  an  extremely  un- 
lovely passage  in  Sterne's  life.  On  the  best  and  most 
charitable  view  of  it,  the  flirtation,  pursued  in  the  way  it 
was,  and  to  the  lengths  to  which  it  was  carried,  must  be 


108  STERNE.  [chap. 

held  to  convict  tlio  elderly  lover  of  tlie  most  deplorable 
levity,  vanity,  indiscretion,  and  sickly  sentimentalism.  It 
was,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  most  unbecoming  in  a  man  of 
Sterne's  age  and  profession  ;  and  when  it  is  added  that 
Yorick's  attentions  to  Eliza  were  paid  in  so  open  a  fashion 
as  to  be  brought  by  gossip  to  the  ears  of  his  neglected 
wife,  then  living  many  hundred  miles  away  from  him,  its 
highly  reprehensible  character  seems  manifest  enough  in 
all  ways. 

No  sooner,  however,  had  the  fascinating  widow  set  sail, 
than  the  sentimental  lover  began  to  feel  so  strongly  the 
need  of  a  female  consoler,  that  his  heart  seems  to  have 
softened,  insensibh',  even  towards  his  wife.  "  I  am  un- 
happy," he  writes  plaintively  to  Lydia  Sterne.  "  Thy 
mother  and  thyself  at  a  distance  from  me — and  what  can 
compensate  for  such  a  destitution  ?  For  God's  sake  per- 
suade her  to  come  and  fix  in  England !  for  life  is  too 
short  to  waste  in  separation ;  and  while  she  lives  in  one 
country  and  I  in  another,  many  people  will  suppose  it 
proceeds  from  choice  " — a  supposition,  he  seems  to  imply, 
which  even  my  scrupulously  discreet  conduct  in  her  absence 
scarcely  suffices  to  refute.  "Besides" — a  word  in  which 
there  is  here  almost  as  much  virtue  as  in  an"  if  " — "  I  want 
thee  near  me,  thou  child  and  darling  of  my  heart.  I  am 
in  a  melancholy  mood,  and  my  Lydia's  eyes  will  smart 
with  weeping  when  I  tell  her  the  cause  that  just  now 
affects  me."  And  then  his  sensibilities  brim  over,  and 
into  his  daughter's  ear  he  pours  forth  his  lamentations 
over  the  loss  of  her  mother's  rival.  "  I  am  ajiprehensiv^e 
the  dear  friend  I  mentioned  in  my  last  letter  is  going  into 
a  decline.  I  was  with  her  two  days  ago,  and  I  never  be- 
held a  being  so  altered.  She  has  a  tender  frame,  and  looks 
like^a  drooping  lily,  for  the  roses  are  fled  from  her  cheeks. 


yii.]  "THE  SENTIMENTAL  JOURNEY."  109 

I  can  never  see  or  talk  to  this  incomparable  woman  Avitli- 
out  burstino:  into  tears.  I  have  a  thousand  oblio-ations  to 
lier,  and  I  love  her  more  than  her  whole  sex,  if  not  all  the 
Avorld  put  together.  She  has  a  delicacy,"  (tc,  kc.  And 
after  reciting  a  frigid  epitaph  which  he  had  written,  "  ex- 
pressive of  her  modest  worth,"  he  winds  up  with — "  Say 
all  that  is  kind  of  me  to  thy  mother ;  and  believe  me,  my 
Lydia,  that  I  love  thee  most  truly."  My  excuse  for  quot-^ 
ing  thus  fully  from  this  most  characteristic  letter,  and,  in- 
deed, for  dwelling  at  all  upon  these  closing  incidents  of  the 
Yorick  and  Eliza  episode,  is,  that  in  their  striking  illus- 
tion  of  the  soft,  weak,  spiritually  self-indulgent  nature 
of  the  man,  they  assist  us,  far  more  than  many  pages 
of  criticism  would  do,  to  understand  one  particular  aspect 
of  his  literary  idiosyncrasy.  The  sentimentalist  of  real  life  / 
explains  the  sentimentalist  in  art. 

In  the  early  days  of  May  Sterne  managed  at  last  to  tear 
himself  away  from  London  and  its  joys,  and  with  painful 
slowness,  for  he  was  now  in  a  wretched  state  of  health,  to 
make  his  wav  back  to  Yorkshire.  "  I  have  o'ot  conveyed," 
he  says  in  a  distressing  letter  from  Xewark  to  Hall  Ste- 
venson— "  I  have  got  conveyed  thus  far  like  a  bale  of  cadav- 
erous o;oods  consio-ned  to  Pluto  and  ComDanv,  lyino*  in  the 
bottom  of  my  chaise  most  of  the  route,  upon  a  large  pillow 
which  I  had  the  prevoyance  to  purchase  before  i  set  out. 
I  am  worn  out,  but  pass  on  to  Barnby  Moor  to-night,  and 
if  possible  to  York  the  next.  I  know  not  what  is  the 
matter  with  me,  but  some  derangement  presses  hard  upon 
this  machine.  Still,  I  think  it  will  not  be  overset  this 
bout " — another  of  those  utterances  of  a  cheerful  courage 
under  the  prostration  of  pain  which  reveal  to  us  the  man- 
liest side  of  Sterne's  nature.  On  reaching  Coxwold  his 
health  appears  to  have  temporarily  mended,  and  in  June 


110  STERNE.  [chap. 

we  find  liiin  giving  a  far  better  account  of  Limself  to  an- 
other of  his  friends.  The  fresh  Yorkshire  air  seems  to 
have  temporarily  revived  him,  and  to  his  friend,  Arthur 
Lee,  a  young  American,  he  writes  thus :  "  I  am  as  happy 
as  a  prince  at  Coxwold,  and  I  wish  you  could  see  in  how 
princely  a  manner  I  live.  'Tis  a  land  of  plenty.  I  sit 
down  alone  to  dinner — fish  and  wild-fowl,  or  a  couple  of 
fowls  or  ducks,  with  cream  and  all  the  simple  plenty  which 
a  rich  valley  under  Hamilton  Hills  can  produce,  with  a 
clean  cloth  on  my  table,  and  a  bottle  of  wine  on  my  right 
hand  to  drink  your  health.  I  have  a  hundred  hens  and 
chickens  about  my  yard ;  and  not  a  parishioner  catches  a 
hare,  a  rabbit,  or  a  trout  but  he  brings  it  as  an  offering  to 
me."  Another  of  his  correspondents  at  this  period  was 
the  Mrs.  H.  of  his  letters,  whose  identity  I  have  been  un- 
able to  trace,  but  who  is  addressed  in  a  manner  which 
seems  to  show  Sterne's  anxiety  to  expel  the  old  flame  of 
Eliza's  kindling  by  a  new  one.  There  is  little,  indeed,  of 
the  sentimentalizing  strain  in  which  he  was  wont  to  sigh 
at  the  feet  of  Mrs.  Draper,  but  in  its  place  there  is  a  free- 
dom of  a  very  prominent,  and  here  and  there  of  a  highly 
unpleasant,  kind.  To  his  friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  James,  too, 
he  writes  frequently  during  this  year,  chiefly  to  pour  out 
his  soul  on  the  subject  of  Eliza;  and  Mrs.  James,  who  is 
always  addressed  in  company  with  her  husband,  enjoys 
the  almost  unique  distinction  of  being  the  only  woman 
outside  his  own  family  circle  whom  Sterne  never  ap- 
proaches in  the  language  of  artificial  gallantry,  but  always 
in  that  of  simple  friendship   and  respect.^     Meanwhile, 

'  To  this  period  of  Sterne's  life,  it  may  here  be  remarked,  is  to 
be  assigned  the  dog-Latin  letter  ("  and  very  sad  dog-Latin  too  ")  so 
justly  animadverted  upon  by  Thackeray,  and  containing  a  passage 
of  which  Madame  de  Mcdallc,  it  is  to  be  charitably  hoped,  had  no 


til]  "THE  SENTIMENTAL  JOUl 

however,  the  Sentimental  Journey  ^Yas  a 

sonable  rate   of  speed  towards  completions 

writes  of  himself  as  "  now  beginning  to  be  tri 

on  it,  "the  pain  and  sorrows  of  this  life  having  retarded 

its  progress." 

His  wife  and  daughter  were  about  to  rejoin  him  in  the 
autumn,  and  he  looked  forward  to  settling  them  at  a  hired 
house  in  York  before  going  up  to  town  to  publish  his  new 
volumes.  On  the  1st  of  October  the  two  ladies  arrived  at 
York,  and  the  next  day  the  reunited  family  went  on  to 
Coxwold.  The  meeting  with  the  daughter  gave  Sterne 
one  of  the  few  quite  innocent  pleasures  which  he  was  ca- 
pable of  feeling ;  and  he  writes  next  day  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
James  in  terms  of  high  pride  and  satisfaction  of  his  recov- 
ered child.  "  My  girl  has  returned,"  he  writes,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  playfal  affection,  "  an  elegant,  accomplished  little 
slut.  My  wife  —  but  I  hate,"  he  adds,  with  remarkable 
presence  of  mind,  "to  praise  my  wife.  'Tis  as  much  as 
decency  will  allow  to  praise  my  daughter.  I  suppose,"  he 
concludes,  "  they  will  return  next  summer  to  France.  They . 
leave  me  in  a  month  to  reside  at  York  for  the  winter,  and 
I  stay  at  Coxwold  till  the  1st  of  January."  This  seems  to 
indicate  a  little  longer  delay  in  the  publication  of  the  Sen- 
timental Journey  than  he  had  at  first  intended ;  for  it  seems 
that  the  book  was  finished  by  the  end  of  November.     On 

suspicion  of  the  meaning.  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  through  an  oversight  in 
translation,  and  understanding  Sterne  to  say  that  he  himself,  and 
not  his  correspondent,  Hall  Stevenson,  was  "quadraginta  et  plus  an- 
nos  natus,"  has  referred  it  to  an  earlier  date.  The  point,  however, 
is  of  no  great  importance,  as  the  untranslatable  passage  in  the  let- 
ter would  be  little  less  unseemly  in  1754  or  1755  than  in  1768,  at 
the  beginning  of  which  year,  since  the  letter  is  addressed  from  Lon- 
don to  Hall  Stevenson,  then  in  Yorkshire,  it  must,  in  fact,  have  been 
written. 


112  STERXE.  [chap. 

the  28tli  of  that  month  lie  writes  to  tlie  Earl  of (as 

his  daughter's  foolish  mystcrionsness  has  lieaclcd  the  let- 
ter), to  thank  him  for  his  letter  of  inquiry  about  Yoriclc, 
and  to  say  that  Yorick  "  has  worn  out  both  his  spirits  and 
body  with  the  Sentimental  Journey.  'Tis  true  that  an 
author  must  feel  himself,  or  his  reader  will  not"  (how 
mistaken  a  devotion  Sterne  showed  to  this  Horatian  can- 
on will  be  noted  hereafter),  "  but  I  have  torn  my  whole 
frame  into  pieces  by  my  feelings.  I  believe  the  brain 
stands  as  much  in  need  of  recruiting  as  the  body ;  there- 
fore I  shall  set  out  for  town  the  20th  of  next  month,  af- 
/ter  having  recruited  myself  at  York."  Then  he  adds  the 
strange  observation,  "I  might,  indeed,  solace  myself  with 
ray  wife  (who  is  come  from  France),  but,  in  fact,  I  have 
long  been  a  sentimental  being,  whatever  your  Lordship 
may  think  to  the  contrary.  The  world  has  imagined  be- 
cause I  wrote  I'rlstram  Shandy  that  I  was  myself  more 
Shandian  than  I  really  ever  was.  'Tis  a  good-natured 
world  we  live  in,  and  we  are  often  painted  in  divers  col- 
ours, according  to  the  ideas  each  one  frames  in  his  head." 
It  would,  perhaps,  have  been  scarcely  possible  for  Sterne 
to  state  his  essentially  unhealthy  philosophy  of  life  so 
concisely  as  in  this  naive  passage.  The  connubial  affec- 
tions are  here,  in  all  seriousness  and  good  faith  apparent- 
ly, opposed  to  the  sentimental  emotions — as  the  lower  to 
the  higher.     To  indulge  the  former  is  to  be  "Shandian," 

-  that  is  to  say,  coarse  and  carnal ;  to  devote  oneself  to  the 
latter,  or,  in  other  words,  to  spend  one's  days  in  semi- 
erotic  languishings  over  the  whole  female  sex  indiscrimi- 

1  nately,  is  to  show  spirituality  and  taste. 

Meanwhile,  however,  that  fragile  abode  of  sentimental- 
ism — that  frame  which  had  just  been  "torn  to  pieces" 
by  the  feelings  —  was  becoming  weaker  than  its  owner 


YU.]  "THE  SEXTDIEXTAL  JOURNEY."  113 

supposed.  Mucli  of  the  exhaustion  which  Sterne  had  at- 
tributed to  the  violence  of  his  hterary  emotions  was  no 
doubt  due  to  the  rapid  decline  of  bodily  powers  which, 
unknown  to  him,  were  already  within  a  few  months  of 
their  final  collapse.  He  did  not  set  out  for  London  on 
the  20th  of  December,  as  he  had  promised  himself,  for 
on  that  day  he  was  only  just  recovering  from  "  an  attack 
of  fever  and  bleeding  at  the  lungs,"  which  had  confined 
him  to  his  room  for  nearly  three  weeks.  "  I  am  worn 
down  to  a  shadow,"  he  writes  on  the  2.3rd,  "but  as  my 
fever  has  left  me,  I  set  ofE  the  latter  end  of  next  week 
with  my  friend,  Mr.  Hall,  for  town."  His  home  affairs 
had  already  been  settled.  Early  in  December  it  had  been 
arranged  that  his  wife  and  daughter  should  only  remain 
at  York  during  the  winter,  and  should  return  to  the  Con- 
tinent in  the  spring.  "  Mrs.  Sterne's  health,"  he  writes, 
"  is  insupportable  in  England.  She  must  return  to  France, 
and  justice  and  humanity  forbid  me  to  oppose  it."  But 
separation  from  his  wife  meant  separation  from  his  daugh- 
ter ;  it  was  this,  of  course,  which  was  the  really  painful 
parting,  and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  Sterne's  disinterestedness 
of  affection  for  Lydia,  that  in  his  then  state  of  health  he 
brouo'ht  himself  to  consent  to  her  leavino-  him.  But  he 
recognized  that  it  was  for  the  advantage  of  her  prospect 
of  settling  herself  in  life  that  she  should  go  with  her 
mother,  who  seemed  "  inclined  to  establish  her  in  France, 
where  she  has  had  many  advantageous  offers."  Neverthe- 
less "  his  heart  bled,"  as  he  wrote  to  Lee,  when  he  thought 
of  parting  with  his  child.  "  'Twill  be  like  the  separation 
of  soul  and  body,  and  equal  to  nothing  but  what  passes  at 
that  tremendous  moment ;  and  like  it  in  one  respect,  for 
she  will  be  in  one  kingdom  while  I  am  in  another."  Thus 
was  this  matter  settled,  and  by  the  1st  of  January  Sterne 
6 


lU  STERNE.  [chap. 

had  arrived  in  London  for  the  last  time,  with  the  two 
vohimcs  of  the  Sentimental  Journey.  He  took  up  his 
quarters  at  the  lodgings  in  Bond  Street  (No.  41),  which 
he  had  occupied  during  his  stay  in  town  the  previous  year, 
and  entered  at  once  upon  the  arrangements  for  publication. 
These  occupied  two  full  months,  and  on  the  27th  of  Feb- 
ruary the  last  work,  as  it  was  destined  to  be,  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Yorick  was  issued  to  the  world. 

Its  success  would  seem  to  have  been  immediate,  and  was 
certainly  great  and  lasting.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  it  was 
far  greater  than  had  been,  or  than  has  since  been,  attained 
by  Tristram  Shandy.  The  compliments  which  courteous 
Frenchmen  had  paid  the  author  upon  his  former  work,  and 
which  his  simple  vanity  had  swallowed  whole  and  unsea- 
soned, without  the  much-needed  grain  of  salt,  might,  no 
doubt,  have  been  repeated  to  him  with  far  greater  sincer- 
ity as  regards  the  Sentimental  Journey^  had  he  lived  to 
receive  them.  Had  any  Frenchman  told  him  a  year  or 
two  afterwards  that  the  latter  work  was  "  almost  as  much 
known  in  Paris  as  in  London,  at  least  among  men  of  con- 
dition and  learning,"  he  would  very  likely  have  been  tell- 
ing him  no  more  than  the  truth.  The  Sentimental  Jour- 
ney certainly  acquired  what  Tristram  Shandy  never  did 
— a  European  reputation.  It  has  been  translated  into 
Italian,  German,  Dutch,  and  even  Polish ;  and  into  French 
again  and  again.  The  French,  indeed,  have  no  doubt  what- 
ever of  its  being  Sterne's  chef-d'oeuvre ;  and  one  has  only 
to  compare  a  French  translation  of  it  w^ith  a  rendering  of 
Tristram  Shandy  into  the  same  language  to  understand, 
and  from  our  neighbours'  point  of  view  even  to  admit,  the 
justice  of  their  preference.  The  charms  of  the  Journey^ 
its  grace,  wit,  and  urbanity,  are  thoroughly  congenial  to 
that  most  graceful  of  languages,  and  rei^roduce  themselves 


til]  "THE  SEXTIMEXTAL  JOURXEY."  115 

readily  enougli  therein ;  -while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fan- 
tastic digressions,  the  elaborate  mystifications,  the  farcical 
interludes  of  the  earlier  work,  appear  intolerably  awkward 
and  hkzare  in  their  French  dress ;  and,  what  is  much  more 
strange,  even  the  point  of  the  clouhle  eiitendres  is  sometimes 
unaccountably  lost.  Were  it  not  that  the  genuine  humour 
of  Tristram  Shandy  in  a  great  measure  evaporates  in  trans- 
lation, one  would  be  forced  to  admit  that  the  work  which 
is  the  more  catholic  in  its  appeal  to  appreciation  is  the  bet- 
ter of  the  two.  But,  having  regard  to  this  disappearance 
of  genuine  and  unquestionable  excellences  in  the  process 
of  translation,  I  see  no  good  reason  why  those  Englishmen 
— the  great  majority,  I  imagine  —  who  prefer  Tristram 
Shandy  to  the  Sentimental  Journey  should  feel  any  mis- 
givings as  to  the  soundness  of  their  taste.  The  humour 
which  goes  the  deepest  down  beneath  the  surface  of  things 
is  the  most  likely  to  become  inextricably  interwoven  with 
those  deeper  fibres  of  associations  which  lie  at  the  roots 
of  a  language  ;  and  it  may  well  happen,  therefore,  though 
from  the  cosmopolitan  point  of  view  it  is  a  melancholy 
reflection,  that  the  merit  of  a  book,  to  those  who  use  the 
language  in  which  it  is  written,  bears  a  direct  ratio  to  the 
persistence  of  its  refusal  to  yield  up  its  charm  to  men  of 
another  tongue. 

The  favour,  however,  with  which  the  Sentimental  Jour- 
ney was  received  abroad,  and  which  it  still  enjoys  (the  last 
French  translation  is  very  recent),  is,  as  Mr.  Fitzgerald  says, 
"worthily  merited,  if  grace,  nature,  true  sentiment,  and  ex- 
quisite dramatic  power  be  qualities  that  are  to  find  a  wel- 
come. And  apart,"  he  adds,  "from  these  attractions  it 
has  a  unique  charm  of  its  own,  a  flavour,  so  to  speak,  a 
fragrance  that  belongs  to  that  one  book  alone.  Never 
was  there  such  a  charming  series  of  complete  little  pict- 


116  STERXE.  [chap.  yii. 

nrcs,  Avliicli  for  delicacy  seem  like  the  scries  of  medallions 
done  on  Sevres  cliina  which  we  sometimes  see  in  old 
French  cabinets.  .  .  .  The  figures  stand  out  brightly,  and 
in  "Nvhat  number  and  variety  !  Old  Calais,  with  its  old 
inn ;  M.  Dessein,  the  monk,  one  of  the  most  artistic  fig- 
ures on  literary  canvas ;  the  charming  French  lady  whom 
M.  Dessein  shut  into  the  carriage  with  the  traveller;  the 
debonnaire  French  captain,  and  the  English  travellers  re- 
turning, touched  in  with  only  a  couple  of  strokes ;  La 
Fleur,  the  valet;  the  pretty  French  glove -seller,  whose 
pulse  the  Sentimental  one  felt;  her  husband,  who  passed 
through  the  shop  and  pulled  off  his  hat  to  Monsieur  for 
the  honour  he  was  doing  him  ;  the  little  maid  in  the  book- 
seller's shop,  who  put  her  little  present  a  part;  the  charm- 
ing Greuze  '  grisset,'  who  sold  him  the  ruffles ;  the  reduced 
chevalier  selling  ^a^e^;  the  groups  of  beggars  at  Montreuil ; 
i\\c,  fade  Count  de  Bissie,  who  read  Sliakspeare;  and  thc 
crowd  of  minor  croquis — postilions,  landlords,  notaries,  sol- 
diers, abbes,  ^j?'mezises,  maids — merely  touched,  but  touch- 
ed with  wonderful  art,  make  up  a  surprising  collection  of 
distinct  and  graphic  characters." 


CHAPTER  YIII. 

LAST   DAYS   AND   DEATH. 
(1768.) 

The  end  was  now  fast  approaching.  Months  before,  Sterne 
had  written  doubtfully  of  his  being  able  to  stand  another 
winter  in  England,  and  his  doubts  were  to  be  fatally  justi- 
fied. One  can  easily  see,  however,  how  the  unhappy  ex- 
periment came  to  be  tried.  It  is  possible  that  he  might 
have  delayed  the  publication  of  his  book  for  a  while,  and 
taken  refuge  abroad  from  the  rigours  of  the  two  remaining 
winter  months,  had  it  not  been  in  the  nature  of  his  malady 
to  conceal  its  deadly  approaches.  Consumption  sported 
with  its  victim  in  the  cruel  fashion  that  is  its  wont.  "  I 
continue  to  mend,"  Sterne  writes  from  Bond  Street  on  the 
first  day  of  the  new  year,  "  and  doubt  not  but  this  with  all 
other  evils  and  uncertainties  of  life  will  end  for  the  best." 
And  for  the  best  perhaps  it  did  end,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  resigned  Christian  uses  these  pious  vrords ;  but  this, 
one  fears,  was  not  the  sense  intended  by  the  dying  man. 
All  through  January  and  February  he  was  occupied  not 
only  with  business,  but  as  it  would  seem  with  a  fair  amount, 
though  less,  no  doubt,  than  his  usual  share,  of  pleasure  also. 
Vastly  active  was  he,  it  seems,  in  the  great  undertaking  of 
obtaining  tickets  for  one  of  Mrs.  Cornely's  entertainments 
— the  "thing"  to  go  to  at  that  particular  time — for  his 


118  STERNE.  [chap, 

friends  tlie  Jameses.  He  writes  them  on  Monday  that  he 
has  not  been  a  moment  at  rest  since  writing  the  previous 
day  about  the  Soho  ticket.  '"  I  have  been  at  a  Secretary 
of  State  to  get  one,  have  been  upon  one  knee  to  my  friend 
Sir  George  Macartney,  Mr.  Lascelles,  and  Mr.  Fitzmaurice, 
"without  mentioning  five  more.  I  believe  I  could  as  soon 
get  you  a  place  at  Court,  for  everybody  is  going;  but  I 
will  go  out  and  try  a  new  circle,  and  if  you  do  not  hear 
from  me  by  a  quarter  to  three,  you  may  conclude  I  have 
been  unfortunate  in  my  supplications."  Whether  he  was 
or  was  not  unfortunate  history  does  not  record.  A  week 
or  two  later  the  old  round  of  dissipation  had  apparently 
set  in.  "  I  am  now  tied  down  neck  and  heels  by  engage- 
ments every  night  this  week,  or  most  joyfully  would  have 
trod  the  old  pleasing  road  from  Bond  to  Gerrard  Street. 
....  I  am  quite  well,  but  exhausted  with  a  roomful  of 
company  every  morning  till  dinner."  A  little  later,  and 
this  momentary  flash  of  health  had  died  out;  and  we  find 
him  writing  what  was  his  last  letter  to  his  daughter,  full, 
evidently,  of  uneasy  forebodings  as  to  his  approaching  end. 
He  speaks  of  "this  vile  influenza — be  not  alarmed.  I 
think  I  shall  get  the  better  of  it,  and  shall  be  with  you 
both  the  1st  of  May;"  though,  he  adds,  "if  I  escape, 
'twill  not  be  for  a  long  period,  my  child  —  unless  a 
quiet  retreat  and  peace  of  mind  can  restore  me."  But  the 
occasion  of  this  letter  was  a  curious  one,  and  a  little  more 
must  be  extracted  from  it.  Lydia  Sterne's  letter  to  her 
father  had,  he  said,  astonished  him.  "  She  (Mrs.  Sterne) 
could  know  but  little  of  my  feelings  to  tell  thee  that  under 
the  supposition  I  should  survive  thy  mother  I  should  be- 
queath thee  as  a  legacy  to  Mrs.  Draper.  No,  my  Lydia, 
'tis  a  lady  whose  virtues  I  wish  thee  to  imitate" — Mrs. 
James,  in  fact,  whom  he  proceeds  to  praise  with  much  and 


Till.]  LAST  DAYS  AXD  DEATH.  119 

probably  vrell-deserved  warmth.  "  But,"  lie  adds,  sadly,  "  I 
think,  my  Lydia,  thy  mother  ^YiIl  survive  me ;  do  not  de- 
ject her  spirit  with  thy  apprehensions  on  ray  account.  I 
have  sent  you  a  necklace  and  buckles,  and  the  same  to 
your  mother.  My  girl  cannot  form  a  wish  that  is  in  the 
power  of  her  father  that  he  will  not  gratify  her  in  ;  and  I 
cannot  in  justice  be  less  kind  to  thy  mother.  I  am  never 
alone.  The  kindness  of  my  friends  is  ever  the  same.  I 
wish  though  I  had  thee  to  nurse  me,  but  I  am  denied  that. 
Write  to  me  twice  a  week  at  least.  God  bless  thee,  my 
child,  and  believe  me  ever,  ever,  thy  affectionate  father." 
The  despondent  tone  of  this  letter  was  to  be  only  too  soon 
justified.  The  "vile  influenza"  proved  to  be  or  became 
a  pleurisy.  On  Thursday,  March  10,  he  was  bled  three 
times,  and  blistered  on  the  day  after.  And  on  the  Tues- 
day following,  in  evident  consciousness  that  his  end  was 
near,  he  penned  that  cry  "  for  pity  and  pardon,"  as  Thack- 
eray calls  it — the  first  as  well  as  the  last,  and  which  sounds 
almost  as  strange  as  it  does  piteous  from  those  mocking 
lips : 

"  The  physician  says  I  am  better.  .  .  .  God  knows,  for  I  feel  my- 
self sadly  wrong,  and  shall,  if  I  recover,  be  a  long  while  of  gaining 
strength.  Before  I  have  gone  through  half  the  letter  I  must  stop  to 
rest  my  weak  hand  a  dozen  times.  Mr.  James  was  so  good  as  to  call 
upon  me  yesterday.  I  felt  emotions  not  to  be  described  at  the  sight 
of  him,  and  he  overjoyed  me  by  talking  a  great  deal  of  you.  Do, 
dear  Mrs.  James,  entreat  him  to  come  to-morrow  or  nest  day,  for  per- 
haps I  have  not  many  days  or  hour^  to  live.  I  want  to  ask  a  favour 
of  him,  if  I  find  myself  worse,  that  I  shall  beg  of  you  if  in  this  wrest- 
ling I  come  ofE  conqueror.  My  spirits  are  fled.  It  is  a  bad  omen ; 
do  not  weep,  my  dear  lady.  Your  tears  are  too  precious  to  be  shed 
for  me.  Bottle  them  up,  and  may  the  cork  never  be  drawn.  Dearest, 
kindest,  gentlest,  and  best  of  women !  may  health,  peace,  and  happi- 
ness prove  your  handmaids.     If  I  die,  cherish  the  remembrance  of 


120  STERXE.  [chap. 

mo,  and  forget  the  follies  which  you  so  often  condemned,  'nhich  my 
heart,  not  my  head,  betrayed  me  into.  Should  my  child,  my  Lydia, 
want  a  mother,  may  I  hope  you  will  (if  she  is  left  pareutless)  take  her 
to  your  bosom  ?  You  are  the  only  woman  on  earth  I  can  depend 
upon  for  such  a  benevolent  action.  I  wrote  to  her  a  fortnight  ago, 
and  told  her  what,  I  trust,  she  will  find  in  you.  Mr.  James  will  be  a 
father  to  her,  .  .  .  Commend  me  to  him,  as  I  now  commend  you  to 
that  Being  who  takes  under  his  care  the  good  and  kind  part  of  the 
world.   Adieu,  all  grateful  thanks  to  you  and  Mr.  James. 

"  From  your  affectionate  friend,  L.  Sterne." 

This  pathetic  death -bed  letter  is  superscribed  "Tues- 
day." It  seems  to  have  been  -svritten  on  Tuesday,  the  15th 
of  March,  and  three  days  later  the  writer  breathed  his  last. 
But  two  persons,  strangers  both,  were  present  at  his  death- 
bed, and  it  is  by  a  singularly  fortunate  chance,  therefore, 
that  one  of  these — and  he  not  belonging  to  the  class  of 
people  who  usually  leave  behind  them  published  records 
of  the  events  of  their  lives — should  have  preserved  for  us 
an  account  of  the  closing  scene.  This,  however,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Memoirs  of  John  Macdonald,  "  a  cadet  of  the 
house  of  Keppoch,"  at  that  time  footman  to  Mr.  Crawford, 
a  fashionable  friend  of  Sterne's.  His  master  had  taken  a 
house  in  Clifford  Street  in  the  spring  of  1*768  ;  and  "about 
this  time,"  he  writes,  "Mr.  Sterne,  the  celebrated  author, 
was  taken  ill  at  the  silk -bag  shop  in  Old  Bond  Street. 
He  was  sometimes  called  Tristram  Shandy  and  sometimes 
Yorick,  a  very  great  favourite  of  the  gentlemen.  One 
day" — namely,  on  the  aforesaid  ISth  of  March — "my 
master  had  company  to  dinner  who  were  speaking  about 
him — the  Duke  of  Roxburghe,  the  Earl  of  March,  the  Earl 
of  Ossory,  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  Mv.  Garrick,  Mr.  Hume, 
and  a  Mr.  James."  Many,  if  not  most,  of  the  party,  there- 
fore, were  personal  friends  of  the  man  who  lay  dying  in 
the  street  hard  by,  and  naturally  enough  the  conversation 


VIII.]  LAST  DAYS  AXD  DEATH.  121 

turned  on  Lis  condition.  "  'John/  "  said  iny  master,"  the 
narrative  continues,  "'go  and  inquire  bow  Mr.  Sterne  is 
to-day.' "  Macdonald  did  so ;  and,  in  language  vrliich 
seems  to  bear  the  stamp  of  truth  upon  it,  he  thus  records 
the  grim  story  which  he  had  to  report  to  the  assembled 
guests  on  his  return :  "  I  went  to  Mr.  Sterne's  lodgings ; 
the  mistress  opened  the  door.  I  enquired  how  he  did ; 
she  told  me  to  go  up  to  the  nurse.  I  went  into  the  room, 
and  he  was  just  a-dyiug.  I  waited  ten  minutes ;  but  in 
five  he  said,  '  Xow  it  is  come.'  He  put  up  his  hand  as  if 
to  stop  a  blow,  and  died  in  a  minute.  The  gentlemen 
were  all  very  sorry,  and  lamented  him  very  much." 

Thus,  supported  by  a  hired  nurse,  and  under  the  curious 
eyes  of  a  stranger,  Sterne  breathed  his  last.  His  wife  and 
daughter  were  far  away ;  the  convivial  associates  "  who  were 
all  very  sorry  and  lamented  him  very  much,"  were  for  the 
moment  represented  only  by  "John ;"  and  the  shocking  tra- 
dition goes  that  the  alien  hands  by  which  the  "  dying  eyes 
were  closed,"  and  the  "  decent  limbs  composed,"  remuner- 
ated themselves  for  the  pious  oflSce  by  abstracting  the  gold 
sleeve-links  from  the  dead  man's  wrists.  One  may  hope, 
indeed,  that  this  last  circumstance  is  to  be  rejected  as  sen- 
sational legend,  but  even  without  it  the  story  of  Sterne's 
death  seems  sad  enough,  no  doubt.  Yet  it  is,  after  all, 
only  by  contrast  with  the  excited  gaiety  of  his  daily  life 
in  London  that  his  end  appears  so  forlorn.  From  many 
a  "set  of  residential  chambers,"  from  many  of  the  old  and 
silent  inns  of  the  lawyers,  departures  as  lonely,  or  lonelier, 
are  being  made  around  us  in  London  every  year:  the  de- 
partures of  men  not  necessarily  kinless  or  friendless,  but 
living  solitary  lives,  and  dying  before  their  friends  or  kin- 
dred can  be  summoned  to  their  bedsides.  Such  deaths,  no 
doubt,  are  often  contrasted  in  conventional  pathos  with  that 
6* 


122  STERNE.  [chap. 

of  the  husband  and  father  surrounded  by  a  weeping  wife 
and  children ;  but  the  niorc  sensible  among  us  construct 
no  tragedy  out  of  a  mode  of  exit  which  must  have  many 
times  entered  as  at  least  a  possibility  into  the  previous 
contemplation  of  the  dying  man.  And  except,  as  has  been 
said,  that  Sterne  associates  himself  in  our  minds  with  the 
perpetual  excitements  of  lively  companionship,  there  Avould 
be  nothing  particularly  melancholy  in  his  end.  This  is 
subject,  of  course,  to  the  assumption  that  the  story  of  his 
landlady  having  stolen  the  gold  sleeve-links  from  his  dead 
body  may  be  treated  as  mythical ;  and,  rejecting  this  story, 
there  seems  no  good  reason  for  making  much  ado  about 
the  manner  of  his  death.  Of  friends,  as  distinguished  from 
mere  dinner-table  acquaintances,  he  seems  to  have  had  but 
few  in  London :  with  the  exception  of  the  Jameses,  one 
knows  not  with  certainty  of  any ;  and  the  Jameses  do  not 
appear  to  have  neglected  him  in  the  illness  which  neither 
they  nor  he  suspected  to  be  his  last.  Mr.  James  had  paid 
him  a  visit  but  a  day  or  two  before  the  end  came ;  and  it 
may  very  likely  have  been  upon  his  report  of  his  friend's 
condition  that  the  message  of  inquiry  w^as  sent  from  the 
dinner  table  at  which  he  was  a  guest.  No  doubt  Sterne's 
flourish  in  Tristram  Shandy  about  his  preferring  to  die 
at  an  inn,  untroubled  by  the  spectacle  of  "  the  concern  of 
my  friends,  and  the  last  services  of  wjping  my  brows  and 
smoothing  my  pillow,"  was  a  mere  piece  of  bravado ;  and 
the  more  probably  so  because  the  reflection  is  appropriated 
almost  bodily  from  Bishop  Burnet,  who  quotes  it  as  a  fre- 
quent observation  of  Archbishop  Leighton.  But,  consid- 
ering that  Sterne  was  in  the  habit  of  passing  nearly  half 
of  each  year  alone  in  London  lodgings,  the  realization  of 
his  wish  does  not  strike  me,  I  confess,  as  so  dramatically 
impressive  a  coincidence  as  it  is  sometimes  represented. 


Till.]  LAST  DAYS  AXD  DEATH.  123 

According,  however,  to  one  strange  story  the  dramatic 
element  gives  place  after  Sterne's  very  burial  to  melodrama 
of  the  darkest  kind.  The  funeral,  which  pointed,  after  all, 
a  far  sadder  moral  than  the  death,  took  place  on  Tuesday, 
March  22,  attended  by  only  two  mourners,  one  of  whom  is 
said  to  have  been  his  publisher  Becket,  and  the  other  prob- 
ably Mr.  James ;  and,  thus  duly  neglected  by  the  whole 
crowd  of  boon  companions,  the  remains  of  Yorick  were 
consigned  to  the  "  new  burying-ground  near  Tyburn  "  of 
the  parish  of  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square.  In  that  now 
squalid  and  long-decayed  grave-yard,  within  sight  of  the 
Marble  Arch  and  over  against  the  broad  expanse  of  Hyde 
Park,  is  still  to  be  found  a  tombstone  inscribed  with  some 
inferior  lines  to  the  memory  of  the  departed  humourist, 
and  with  a  statement,  inaccurate  by  eight  months,  of  the 
date  of  his  death,  and  a  year  out  as  to  his  age.  Dying,  as 
has  been  seen,  on  the  18th  of  March,  1768,  at  the  age  of 
fifty-four,  he  is  declared  on  this  slab  to  have  died  on  the 
13th  of  November,  aged  fifty-three  years.  There  is  more 
excuse,  however,  for  this  want  of  veracity  than  sepulchral 
inscriptions  can  usually  plead.  The  stone  was  erected  by 
the  pious  hands  of  "  two  brother  Masons,"  many  years,  it 
is  said,  after  the  event  which  it  purports  to  record;  and 
from  the  wording  of  the  epitaph  which  commences,  "  Xear 
this  place  lyes  the  body,"  (tc,  it  obviously  does  not  profess 
to  indicate — what,  doubtless,  there  was  no  longer  any 
means  of  tracing — the  exact  spot  in  which  Sterne's  re- 
mains were  laid.  Bat,  wherever  the  grave  really  was,  the 
body  interred  in  it,  according  to  the  strange  story  to 
■which  I  have  referred,  is  no  longer  there.  That  story  goes : 
that  two  days  after  the  burial,  on  the  night  of  the  24th  of 
March,  the  corpse  was  stolen  by  body-snatchers,  and  by 
them  disposed  of  to  M.  Collignon,  Professor  of  Anatomy 


124  STERNE.  [chap. 

at  Cambridge ;  that  the  Professor  invited  a  few  scientific 
friends  to  witness  a  demonstration,  and  that  among  these 
was  one  who  had  been  acquainted  with  Sterne,  and  who 
fainted  with  horror  on  recognizing  in  the  already  partially 
dissected  *'  subject "  the  features  of  his  friend.  So,  at 
least,  this  very  gruesome  and  Poe-like  legend  runs  ;  but 
it  must  be  confessed  that  all  the  evidence  w^hicli  Mr.  Fitz- 
gerald has  been  able  to  collect  in  its  favour  is  of  the  very 
loosest  and  vaguest  description.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is, 
of  course,  only  fair  to  recollect  that,  in  days  when  respect- 
able surgeons  and  grave  scientific  professors  had  to  de- 
pend upon  the  assistance  of  law-breakers  for  the  prosecu- 
tion of  their  studies  and  teachings,  every  eSort  would 
naturally  be  made  to  hush  up  any  such. unfortunate  affair. 
There  is,  moreover,  independent  evidence  to  the  fact  that 
similar  desecrations  of  this  grave-yard  had  of  late  been 
very  common;  and  that  at  least  one  previous  attempt  to 
check  the  operations  of  the  "  resurrection-men  "  had  been 
attended  with  peculiarly  infelicitous  results.  In  the  St. 
James's  Chronicle  for  November  26,  1767,  we  find  it  re- 
corded that  "  the  Burying  Ground  in  Oxford  Road,  belong- 
ing to  the  Parish  of  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  having 
been  lately  robbed  of  several  dead  bodies,  a  Watcher  was 
placed  there,  attended  by  a  large  mastiff  Dog;  notwith- 
standing which,  on  Sunday  night  last,  some  Villains  found 
means  to  steal  out  another  dead  Body,  and  carried  off  the 
very  Dog."  Body-snatchers  so  adroit  and  determined  as 
to  contrive  to  make  additional  profit  out  of  the  actual 
means  taken  to  prevent  their  depredations,  would  certainly 
not  have  been  deterred  by  any  considerations  of  prudence 
from  attempting  the  theft  of  Sterne's  corpse.  There  was 
no  such  ceremony  about  his  funeral  as  would  lead  them  to 
suppose  that  the  deceased  was  a  person  of  any  importance, 


VIII.]  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH.  125 

or  one  whose  body  could  not  be  stolen  witliout  a  risk  of 
creating  nndcsirable  excitement.  On  the  Avbole,  therefore, 
it  is  impossible  to  reject  the  body-snatching*  story  as  cer- 
tainly fabulous,  though  its  truth  is  far  from  being  proved  ; 
and  thouo'h  I  can  scarcely  myself  subscribe  to  Mr.  Fitz- 
gerald's  view,  that  there  is  a  "grim  and  lurid  Shandyisni" 
about  the  scene  of  dissection,  yet  if  others  discover  an 
appeal  to  their  sense  of  humour  in  the  idea  of  Sterne's 
body  being  dissected  after  death,  I  see  nothing  to  prevent 
them  from  holding  that  hypothesis  as  a  "  pious  opinion." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

STERNE    AS    A    WRITER. THE    CHARGE    OF    PLAGIARISM. 

DR.  ferriar's  "illustrations." 

Everyday  experience  suffices  to  show  that  the  qualities 
wliicli  win  enduring  fame  for  books  and  for  their  authors 
are  not  always  those  to  which  they  owe  their  first  popu- 
larity. It  may  with  the  utmost  probability  be  affirmed 
that  this  was  the  case  with  Tristram  Shandy  and  with 
Sterne.  We  cannot,  it  is  true,  altogether  dissociate  the 
permanent  attractions  of  the  novel  from  those  character- 
istics of  it  which  have  long  since  ceased  to  attract  at  all ; 
the  two  are  united  in  a  greater  or  less  deo-ree  throuo-hout 

o  on 

the  work;  and  this  being  so,  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to 
prove  to  demonstration  that  it  was  the  latter  qualities,  and 
not  the  former,  which  procured  it  its  immediate  vogue. 
But,  as  it  happens,  it  is  possible  to  show  that  what  may 
be  called  its  spurious  attractions  varied  directly,  and  its 
real  merits  inversely,  as  its  popularity  with  the  public  of 
its  day.  In  the  higher  qualities  of  humour,  in  dramatic 
vigour,  in  skilful  and  subtle  delineation  of  character,  the 
novel  showed  no  deterioration,  but,  in  some  instances,  a 
marked  improvement,  as  it  proceeded;  yet  the  second  in- 
stalment was  not  more  popular,  and  most  of  the  succeed- 
ing ones  were  distinctly  less  popular,  than  the  first.  They 
had  gained  in  many  qualities,  while  they  had  lost  in  only 
the  single  one  of  novelty ;  and  we  may  infer,  therefore, 


CHAP.  IX.]  THE  CHARGE  OF  PLAGIARISil.  127 

with  approximate  certainty,  that  w'hat  "took  the  town" 
in  the  first  instance  was,  that  quality  of  the  book  which 
was  strangest  at  its  first  appearance.  The  mass  of  the  pub- 
lic read,  and  enjoyed,  or  thought  they  enjoyed,  when  they 
were  really  only  puzzled  and  perplexed.  The  wild  digres- 
sions, the  audacious  impertinences,  the  burlesque  philoso- 
phizing, the  broad  jests,  the  air  of  recondite  learning,  all 
combined  to  make  the  book  a  nine  days'  wonder;  and  a 
majority  of  its  readers  would  probably  have  been  prepared 
to  pronounce  Tristram  Shandy  a  work  as  original  in 
scheme  and  conception  as  it  was  eccentric.  Some  there 
were,  no  doubt,  who  perceived  the  influence  of  Rabelais  in 
the  incessant  digressions  and  the  burlesque  of  philosophy ; 
others,  it  may  be,  found  a  reminder  of  Barton  in  the  pa- 
rade of  learning ;  and  yet  a  few  others,  the  scattered  stu- 
dents of  French  facetiae  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  may  have  read  the  broad  jests  with  a  feeling 
that  they  had  "  seen  something  like  it  before."  But  no 
single  reader,  no  single  critic  of  the  time,  appears  to  have 
combined  the  knowledge  necessary  for  tracing  these  three 
characteristics  of  the  novel  to  their  respective  sources ;  and 
none  certainly  had  any  suspicion  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  books  and  authors  from  whom  they  were  imitated  had 
been  laid  under  contribution.  Xo  one  suspected  that 
Sterne,  not  content  with  borrowino;  his  trick  of  rambliniv 
from  Rabelais,  and  his  airs  of  erudition  from  Burton,  and 
his  fooleries  from  Bruscambille,  had  coolly  transferred 
whole  passages  from  the  second  of  these  writers,  not  only 
without  acknowledgment,  but  with  the  intention,  obvious- 
ly indicated  by  his  mode  of  procedure,  of  passing  them 
oS  as  his  own.  Nay,  it  was  not  till  fall  fifty  years  after- 
wards that  these  daring  robberies  were  detected,  or,  at  any 
rate,  revealed  to  the  world  ;  and,  with  an  irony  which  Sterne 


128  STERNE.  [chap. 

liimself  would  Lave  appreciated,  it  was  reserved  for  a  sin- 
cere admirer  of  the  humourist  to  play  the  part  of  detec- 
tive. In  1812  Dr.  John  Ferriar  published  his  Illustratio?is 
of  Sterne,  and  the  prefatory  sonnet,  in  ^vhich  he  solicits 
pardon  for  his  too  minute  investigations,  is  sufficient  proof 
of  the  curiously  reverent  spirit  in  \\hich  he  set  about  his 
damaging  task : 

"  Sterne,  for  whose  sake  I  plod  througli  miry  ways 
Of  antic  wit,  and  quibbling  mazes  drear, 
Let  not  thy  shade  malignant  censure  fear. 

If  aught  of  inward  mirth  my  search  betrays. 

Long  slept  that  mirth  in  dust  of  ancient  days, 
Erewhile  to  Guise  or  wanton  Yalois  dear,"  &c. 

Thus  commences  Dr.  Ferriar's  apology,  which,  hovvxver, 
can  hardly  be  held  to  cover  his  offence ;  for,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  Sterne's  borrowings  extend  to  a  good  deal  besides 
"mirth;"  and  some  of  the  most  unscrupulous  of  these 
forced  loans  are  raised  from  passages  of  a  perfectly  seri- 
ous import  in  the  originals  from  which  they  are  taken. 

Here,  however,  is  the  list  of  authors  to  whom  Dr.  Fer- 
riar holds  Sterne  to  have  been  more  or  less  indebted : 
Rabelais,  Beroalde  de  Yerville,  Bouchet,  Bruscambille,  Scar- 
ron,  Swift,  an  author  of  the  name  or  pseudonym  of  "  Ga- 
briel John,"  Burton,  Bacon,  Blount,  Montaigne,  Bishop  Hall. 
The  catalogue  is  a  reasonably  long  one ;  but  it  is  not,  of 
course,  to  be  supposed  that  Sterne  helped  himself  equally 
freely  from  every  author  named  in  it.  His  obligations  to 
some  of  them  are,  as  Dr.  Ferriar  admits,  but  slight.  From 
Rabelais,  besides  his  vagaries  of  narrative,  Sterne  took,  no 
doubt,  the  idea  of  the  Tristra-jycedia  (by  descent  from  the 
"  education  of  Pantagrucl,"  througli  "  Martinus  Scrible- 
rus");  but  though  he  has  appropriated  bodily  the  passage 
in  which  Friar  John  attributes  the  beauty  of  his  nose  to 


IX.]  DR.  FERRURS  " ILLUSTRATIOXS."  129 

the  pectoral  conformation  of  his  nurse,  he  may  be  said  to 
have  constructively  acknowledged  the  debt  in  a  reference 
to  one  of  the  characters  in  the  Rabelaisian  dialogue/ 

Upon  Beroalde,  again,  upon  D'Aubigne,  and  upon  Bou- 
chet  he  has  made  no  direct  and  verbatim  depredations. 
From  Bruscambille  he  seems  to  have  taken  little  or  noth- 
ing but  the  not  very  valuable  idea  of  the  tedious  buffoon- 
ery of  vol.  iii.  c.  30,  et  sqq. ;  and  to  Scarron  he,  perhaps, 
owed  the  incident  of  the  dv;arf  at  the  theatre  in  the  Sen- 
timental Journey,  an  incident  which,  it  must  be  owned,  he 
vastly  improved  in  the  taking.  All  this,  however,  does  not 
amount  to  very  much,  and  it  is  only  when  we  come  to  Dr. 
Ferriar's  collations  of  Tristram  Shandy  with  the  Anatomy 
of  Melancholy  that  we  begin  to  understand  what  feats 
Sterne  was  capable  of  as  a  plagiarist.  He  must,  to  begin 
with,  have  relied  with  cynical  confidence  on  .theconviction 
that  famous  writers  are  talked  about  and  not  read,  for  he 
sets  to  work  with  the  scissors  upon  Burton's  first  page : 
"  Man,  the  most  excellent  and  noble  creature  of  the  world, 
the  principal  and  mighty  work  of  God;  wonder  of  nature, 
as  Zoroaster  calls  him  ;  audacis  naturce  miraculum,  the 
marvel  of  marvels,  as  Plato ;  the  abridgment  and  epitome 
of  the  world,  as  Pliny,"  (fcc.     Thus  Burton ;   and,  with  a 

^  "  There  is  no  cause  but  one,"  said  my  Uncle  Toby,  "  why  one 
man's  nose  is  longer  than  another,  but  because  that  God  pleases  to 
have  it  so."  "That  is  Grangousier's  solution,"  said  my  father, 
"  'Tis  He,"  continued  my  Uncle  Toby,  "  who  makes  us  all,  and  frames 
and  puts  us  together  in  such  forms  .  .  .  and  for  such  ends  as  is 
agreeable  to  His  infinite  wisdom." — Tristram  Shcmdy,  vol.  iii.  c.  41. 
'•Par  C9,  repondit  Grangousier,  qu'ainsi  Dieu  I'a  voulu,  lequel  nous 
fait  en  cette  forme  et  cette  fin  selon  divin  arbitre." — Rahtlais,  book  i. 
c.  41.  In  another  place,  however  (vol.  viii.  c.  8),  Sterne  has  borrowed 
a  whole  passage  from  this  French  humourist  without  any  acknowl- 
edgment at  all. 


130  STERNE.  [chap. 

few  additions  of  his  own,  and  the  substitution  of  Aristotle 
for  Plato  as  the  author  of  one  of  the  descriptions,  thus 
Sterne :  "  Who  made  Man  with  powers  which  dart  him 
from  heaven  to  earth  in  a  moment — that  great,  that  most 
excellent  and  noble  creature  of  the  world,  the  miracle  of 
nature,  as  Zoroaster,  in  his  book  Trepl  (pvaewg,  called  him — 
the  Shekinah  of  the  Divine  Presence,  as  Chrysostom — the 
image  of  God,  as  Moses — the  ray  of  Divinity,  as  Plato — 
the  marvel  of  marvels,  as  Aristotle,"  &c.^  And  in  the 
same  chapter,  in  the  "  Fragment  upon  Whiskers,"  Sterne 
relates  how  a  "decayed  kinsman"  of  the  Lady  Baussiere 
"  ran  begging,  bareheaded,  on  one  side  of  her  palfrey,  con- 
juring her  by  the  former  bonds  of  friendship,  alliance,  con- 
sanguinity, &c. — cousin,  aunt,  sister,  mother — for  virtue's 
sake,  for  your  own  sake,  for  mine,  for  Christ's  sake,  re- 
member me!  pity  me!"  And  again  he  tells  how  a  "de- 
vout, venerable,  hoary-headed  man"  thus  beseeched  her: 
" '  I  beg  for  the  unfortunate.  Good  my  lady,  'tis  for  a 
prison — for  an  hospital ;  'tis  for  an  old  man — a  poor  man 
undone  by  shipwreck,  by  suretyship,  by  fire.  I  call  God 
and  all  His  angels  to  witness,  'tis  to  clothe  the  naked,  to 
feed  the  hungry — 'tis  to  comfort  the  sick  and  the  broken- 
hearted.'    The  Lady  Baussiere  rode  on."" 

But  now  compare  this  passage  from  the  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy : 

"  A  poor  decayed  kinsman  of  his  sets  upon  liim  by  the  way,  in  all 
his  jollity,  and  runs  begging,  bareheaded,  by  him,  conjuring  him  by 
those  former  bonds  of  friendship,  alliance,  consanguinity,  &c., '  uncle, 
cousin,  brother,  father,  show  some  pity  for  Christ's  sake,  pity  a 
sick  man,  an  old  man,'  &c. ;  he  cares  not  —  ride  on:  pretend  sick- 
ness, inevitable  loss  of  limbs,  plead  suretyship  or  shipwreck,  fire, 
common  calamities,  show  thy  wants   and  imperfections,  take  God 

^  Tristram  Shandy^  vol.  v.  c.  1.  2  jn^i^ 


ix]  DR.  FERRIAR'S  "  ILLUSTRATIONS."  131 

and  all  His  angels  to  witness  .  .  .  put  up  a  supplication  to  him  in 
the  name  of  a  thousand  orphans,  an  hospital,  a  spittle,  a  prison,  as 
he  goes  by  .  .  .  ride  on.^ 

Hai'Jly  a  casual  coincidence  this.  But  it  is  yet  more 
unpleasant  to  find  that  the  mock  pbilosopbic  reflections 
with  which  Mr.  Shandy  consoles  himself  on  Bobby's 
death,  in  those  delightful  chapters  on  that  event,  are  not 
taken,  as  they  profess  to  be,  direct  from  the  sages  of  an- 
tiquity, but  have  been  conveyed  through,  and  "conveyed" 
from.  Burton. 

"  When  Agripplna  was  told  of  her  son's  death,"  says 
Sterne,  "  Tacitus  informs  ns  that,  not  being  able  to  mod- 
erate her  passions,  she  abruptly  broke  off  her  work." 
Tacitus  docs,  it  is  true,  inform  us  of  this.  But  it  was  un- 
doubtedly Burton  (Anat.  MeL,  p.  213)  who  informed  Sterne 
of  it.  So,  too,  when  Mr.  Shandy  goes  on  to  remark  upon 
death  that  "  'Tis  an  inevitable  chance — the  first  statute  in 
Magna  Charta — it  is  an  everlasting  Act  of  Parliament,  my 
dear  brother — all  must  die,"  the  agreement  of  his  views 
with  those  of  Burton,  who  had  himself  said  of  death,  "  'Tis 
an  inevitable  chance — the  first  statute  in  Magna  Charta — 
an  everlasting  Act  of  Parliament — all  must  die,"'^  is  even 
textually  exact. 

In  the  next  passage,  however,  the  humourist  gets  the 
better  of  the  plagiarist,  and  we  are  ready  to  forgive  the 
theft  for  the  happily  comic  turn  whicb  he  gives  to  it. 

Burton : 

"  Tullj  was  much  grieved  for  his  daughter  Tulliola's  death  at  first, 
until  such  time  that  he  had  confirmed  his  mind  by  philosophical  pre- 
cepts ;  then  he  began  to  triumph  over  fortune  and  grief,  and  for  her 
reception  into  heaven  to  be  much  more  joyed  than  before  he  was 
troubled  for  her  loss." 

1  Burton :  Anat.  Mel,  p.  269.  -  Rid.,  p.  215. 


132  STERNE.  [chap. 

Sterne : 

"  When  Tally  was  bereft  of  his  daughter,  at  first  he  laid  it  to  his 
heart,  he  listened  to  the  voice  of  nature,  and  modulated  his  own  unto 
it.  0  my  Tullia  !  my  daughter !  my  child  !— Still,  still,  still— 'twas  0 
my  Tullia,  my  Tullia  !  Methinks  I  sec  my  Tullia,  I  hear  my  Tullia, 
I  talk  with  my  Tullia.  But  as  soon  as  he  began  to  look  into  the 
stores, of  philosophy,  and  consider  Jioio  many  excellent  things  might  he 
said  upon  the  occasion^  nobody  on  earth  can  conceive,  says  the  great 
orator,  how  happy,  how  joyful  it  made  me." 

"Kingdoms  and  provinces,  cities  and  towns,"  continues 
Bnrton,  "have  their  periods,  and  are  consumed."  "King- 
doms and  provinces,  and  towns  and  cities,"  exclaims  Mr. 
Shand}',  throwing  the  sentence,  like  the  "  born  orator " 
his  son  considered  him,  into  the  rhetorical  interrogative, 
"  have  they  not  their  periods  ?"  "  Where,"  ho  proceeds, 
"is  Troy,  and  Mycenre,  and  Thebes,  and  Delos,  and  Per- 
sepolis,  and  Agrigentum?  What  is  become,  brother  Toby, 
of  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  of  Cyzicum  and  Mytilene  ?  The 
fairest  towns  that  ever  the  sun  rose  upon  "  (and  all,  w  itli 
the  curious  exception  of  Mytilene,  enumerated  by  Burton) 
"  are  now  no  more."  And  then  the  famous  consolatory 
letter  from  Servius  Sulpicius  to  Cicero  on  the  death  of 
Tullia  is  laid  under  contribution — Burton's  rendering  of 
the  Latin  being  followed  almost  word  for  word.  "  Return- 
ing out  of  A"sia,"  declaims  Mr.  Shandy,  "  when  I  sailed 
from  JEgina  towards  Megara"  (when  can  this  have  been? 
thought  my  Uncle  Toby),  "  I  began  to  view  the  country 
round  about,  -^gina  was  behind  me,  Megara  before,"  &c., 
and  so  on,  down  to  the  final  reflection  of  the  philosopher, 
"Remember  that  thou  art  but  a  man;"  at  which  point 
Sterne  remarks  coolly,  "Now,  my  Uncle  Toby  knew  not 
that  this  last  paragraph  was  an  extract  of  Servius  Sulpici- 
us's  consolatory  letter  to  Tully" — the  thing  to  be  really 


IX.]  DK.  FERRIAR'S  "  ILLUSTRATIOXS."  133 

known  being  that  the  paragraph  vras,  in  fact,  Scrvius  Sul- 
picius  filtered  through  Burton.  Again,  and  still  quoting 
from  the  Anatomy  of  Melandiohj,  Mr.  Shandy  remarks 
how  "  the  Thraciaus  wept  when  a  child  was  born,  and 
feasted  and  made  merry  when  a  man  went  out  of  the 
world;  and  with  reason."  lie  then  goes  on  to  lay  pred- 
atory hands  on  that  fine,  sad  passage  in  Lucian,  which 
Burton  had  quoted  before  him :  "  Is  it  not  better  not  to 
hunger  at  all,  than  to  eat  ?  not  to  thirst,  than  to  take  physic 
to  cure  it  ?"  (why  not  "  than  to  drink  to  satisfy  thirst  ?" 
as  Lucian  wrote  and  Burton  translated).  "  Is  it  not  better 
to  be  freed  from  cares  and  agues,  love  and  melancholy,  and 
the  other  hot  and  cold  fits  of  life,  than,  like  a  galled  trav- 
eller who  comes  weary  to  his  inn,  to  be  bound  to  begin 
his  journey  afresh  ?"  Then,  closing  his  Burton  and  open- 
ing his  Bacon  at  the  Essai/  on  Deatk^  he  adds :  "  There  is 
no  terror,  brother  Toby,  in  its  (Death's)  looks  but  what  it 
borrows  from  groans  and  convulsions,  and"  (here  parody 
forces  its  way  in)  "  the  blowing  of  noses,  and  the  wiping 
away  of  tears  with  the  bottoms  of  curtains  in  a  sick  man's 
bed-room ;"  and  with  one  more  theft  from  Burton,  after 
Seneca :  "  Consider,  brother  Toby,  when  we  are,  death  is 
not ;  and  when  death  is,  we  are  not,"  this  extraordinary 
cento  of  plagiarisms  concludes. 

Not  that  this  is.  Sterne's  only  raid  upon  the  quaint  old 
writer  of  whom  he  has  here  made  such  free  use.  Several 
other  instances  of  word  for  word  appropriation  might  be 
quoted  from  this  and  the  succeeding  volumes  of  Tristram 
Shancbj.  The  apostrophe  to  "  blessed  health,"  in  c.  xxxiii. 
of  vol.  V.  is  taken  direct  from  the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy ; 
so  is  the  phrase,  "  He  has  a  gourd  for  his  head  and  a  pip- 
pin for  his  heart,"  in  c.  ix. ;  so  is  the  jest  about  Franciscus 
Ribera's  computation  of  the  amount  of  cubic  space  required 


134  STERNE.  [chap. 

by  the  sonls  of  the  lost ;  so  is  Ililarion  tlie  liermit's  com- 
parison of  liis  body  ^vith  its  unruly  passions  to  a  kicking 
ass.  And  tliere  is  a  passage  in  the  Sentimental  Journey, 
the  "  Fragment  in  the  Abderitans,"  ^vhicll  shows,  Dr. 
Ferriar  thinks — though  it  docs  not  seem  to  me  to  show 
conclusively — that  Sterne  was  unaware  that  what  he  was 
taking  from  Burton  had  been  previously  taken  by  Burton 
from  Lucian. 

There  is  more  excuse,  in  the  opinion  of  the  author  of  the 
Illustrations,  for  the  literary  thefts  of  the  preacher  than 
for  those  of  the  novelist ;  since  in  sermons,  Dr.  Ferriar 
observes  drily,  "  the  principal  matter  must  consist  of  repe- 
titions." But  it  can  hardly,  I  think,  be  admitted  that  the 
kind  of  "  repetitions  "  to  which  Sterne  had  recourse  in  the 
pulpit — or,  at  any  rate,  in  compositions  ostensibly  prepared 
for  the  pulpit — are  quite  justifiable.  Professor  Jebb  has 
pointed  out,  in  a  recent  volume  of  this  series,  that  the  de- 
scription of  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition,  which  so  deep- 
ly moved  Corporal  Trim  in  the  famous  Sermon  on  Con- 
science, was  really  the  work  of  Bentley ;  but  Sterne  has 
pilfered  more  freely  from  a  divine  more  famous  as  a 
preacher  than  the  great  scholar  whose  words  he  appropri- 
ated on  that  occasion.  "Then  shame  and' grief  go  with 
her,"  he  exclaims  in  his  singular  sermon  on  "The  Levite 
and  his  Concubine;"  "and  wherever  she  seeks  a  shelter 
may  the  hand  of  Justice  shut  the  door  against  her!"  an 
exclamation  which  is  taken,  as,  no  doubt,  indeed,  was  the 
whole  suggestion  of  the  somewhat  strange  subject,  from 
the  Contemjylations  of  Bishop  Hall.  And  so,  again,  we 
find  in  Sterne's  sermon  the  following: 

"Mercy  well  becomes  the  heart  of  till  Thy  creatures  !  but  most  of 
Thy  servant,  a  Levite,  who  offers  up  so  many  daily  sacrifices  to  Thee 
for  the  transgressions  of  Thy  people.    But  to  little  purpose,  he  would 


IX.]  DR.  FERRIAR'S  "  ILLUSTRATIONS."  135 

add,  have  I  served  at  Thy  altar,  -where  my  business  ■was  to  sue  for 
mercy,  had  I  not  learned  to  practise  it." 

And  in  Hall's  Contemplations  the  following: 

"Mercy  becomes  well  the  heart  of  any  man,  but  most  of  a  Levite. 
He  that  had  helped  to  offer  so  many  sacrifices  to  God  for  the  multi- 
tude of  every  Israelite's  sins  saw  how  proportionable  it  was  that  man 
should  not  hold  one  sin  unpardonable.  He  had  served  at  the  altar 
to  no  purpose,  if  he  (whose  trade  was  to  sue  for  mercy)  had  not  at  all 
learned  to  practise  it." 

Sterne's  twelfth  sermon,  on  the  Foroiveness  of  Injuries, 
is  merely  a  diluted  commentary  on  the  conclusion  of  Hall's 
*'  Contemplation  of  Joseph."  In  the  sixteenth  sermon,  the 
one  on  Shimei,  we  find : 

"  There  is  no  small  degree  of  malicious  craft  in  fixing  upon  a  sea- 
son to  give  a  mark  of  enmity  and  ill  will :  a  word,  a  look,  which  at 
one  time  would  make  no  impression,  at  another  time  wounds  the 
heart,  and,  like  a  shaft  flying  with  the  wind,  pierces  deep,  which, 
with  its  own  natural  force,  would  scarce  have  reached  the  object 
aimed  at." 

This,  it  is  evident,  is  but  slightly  altered,  and  by  no 
means  for  the  better,  from  the  more  terse  and  vigorous 
language  of  the  Bishop  : 

"  There  is  no  small  cruelty  in  the  picking  out  of  a  time  for  mis- 
chief:  that  word  would  scarce  gall  at  one  season  which  at  another 
killeth.  The  same  shaft  flying  with  the  wind  pierces  deep,  which 
against  it  can  hardly  find  strength  to  stick  upright." 

But  enough  of  these  pieces  de  conviction.  Indictments 
for  plagiarism  are  often  too  hastily  laid ;  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  I  should  imagine,  in  the  mind  of  any  reasonable 
being  upon  the  evidence  here  cited,  that  the  offence  in  this 
case  is  clearly  proved.  Nor,  I  think,  can  there  be  much 
question  as  to  its  moral  complexion.     For  the  pilferings 


13G  STERNE.  [chap. 

from  Bishop  Hall,  at  any  rate,  no  sliadow  of  ex-cuse  c-an, 
so  far  as  I  can  sec,  be  alleged.  Sterne  could  not  possibly 
plead  any  better  justification  for  borrowing  Hall's  tliouglits 
and  phrases  and  passing  them  off  upon  his  hearers  or  read- 
ers as  original,  than  he  could  plead  for  claiming  the  au- 
thorship of  one  of  the  Bishop's  benevolent  actions  and 
representing  himself  to  the  \Yorld  as  the  doer  of  the  good 
deed.  In  the  actual  as  in  the  hypothetical  case  there  is  a 
dishonest  appropriation  by  one  man  of  the  credit — in  the 
former  case  the  intellectual,  in  the  latter  the  moral  credit 
— belonging  to  another :  the  offence  in  the  actual  case  be- 
ing aggravated  by  the  fact  that  it  involves  a  fraud  upon 
the  purchaser  of  the  sermon,  who  pays  money  for  what  he 
may  already  have  in  his  library.  The  plagiarisms  from 
Burton  stand  npon  a  slightly  different  though  not,  I 
think,  a  much  more  defensible  footing.  For  in  this  case  it 
has  been  urged  that  Sterne,  being  desirous  of  satirizing  ped- 
antry, was  justified  in  resorting  to  the  actually  existent 
writings  of  an  antique  pedant  of  real  life ;  and  that  since 
Mr.  Shandy  could  not  be  made  to  talk  more  like  himself 
than  Burton  talked  like  him,  it  was  artistically  lawful  to 
put  Burton's  exact  words  into  Mr.  Shandy's  mouth.  It 
makes  a  difference,  it  may  be  said,  that  Sterne  is  not  here 
speaking  in  his  own  person,  as  he  is  in  his  Sermons,  but 
in  the  person  of  one  of  his  characters.  This  casuistry, 
however,  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  sound.  Even  as  re- 
gards the  passages  from  ancient  authors,  which,  while 
quoting  them  from  Burton,  he  tacitly  represents  to  his 
readers  as  taken  from  his  own  stores  of  knowledge,  the 
excuse  is  hardly  sufficient;  while  as  regards  the  original 
reflections  of  the  author  of  the  Anatomy  of  Melanchohj 
it  obviously  fails  to  apply  at  all.  And  in  any  case  there 
could  be  no  necessity  for  the  omission  to  acknowledge  the 


IX.]  DR.  FERRIAR'S  "  ILLUSTRATIOXS."  137 

debt.  Even  admitting  that  no  more  cliaracteristic  reflec- 
tions could  have  been  composed  for  Mr.  Shandy  than  were 
actually  to  be  found  in  Burton,  art  is  not  so  exacting  a 
mistress  as  to  compel  the  artist  to  plagiarize  against  his 
■will.  A  scrupulous  writer,  being  also  as  ingenious  as 
Sterne,  could  have  found  some  means  of  indicating  the 
source  from  which  he  was  borrowing  without  destroying 
the  dramatic  illusion  of  the  scene. 

But  it  seems  clear  enough  that  Sterne  himself  was  trou- 
bled by  no  conscientious  qualms  on  this  subject.  Perhaps 
the  most  extraordinary  instance  of  literary  effrontery  which 
was  ever  met  with  is  the  passage  in  vol.  v.  c.  1,  which 
even  that  seasoned  detective  Dr.  Ferriar  is  startled  into 
pronouncing  "  singular."  Burton  had  complained  that 
writers  were  like  apothecaries,  who  "  make  new  mixtures 
every  day,"  by  "pouring  out  of  one  vessel  into  another." 
"  We  weave,"  he  said,  "  the  same  web  still,  twist  the  same 
rope  again  and  again."  And  Sterne  incolumi  gravitate 
asks :  "  Shall  we  forever  make  new  books  as  apothecaries 
make  new  mixtures,  by  pouring  only  out  of  one  vessel  into 
another?  Are  we  forever  to  be  twistinar  and  untwistinGf 
the  same  rope,  forever  on  the  same  track,  forever  at  the 
same  pace  ?*'  And  this  he  writes  with  the  scissors  actually 
opened  in  his  hand  for  the  almost  bodily  abstraction  of 
the  passage  beginning,  "  Man,  the  most  excellent  and  no- 
ble creature  of  the  world !"  Surely  this  denunciation  of 
plagiarism  by  a  plagiarist  on  the  point  of  setting  to  work 
could  only  have  been  written  by  a  man  who  looked  upon 
plagiarism  as  a  good  joke. 

Apart,  however,  from   the   moralities  of  the  matter,  it 

must  in  fairness  be  admitted  that  in  most  cases  Sterne  is  no 

servile  copyist.    He  appropriates  other  men's  thoughts  and 

phrases,  and  with  them,  of  course,  the  credit  for  the  wit, 

t 


138  STERNE.  [chap.  ix. 

the  truth,  the  vigour,  or  the  learning  \\'hich  characterizes 
them  ;  but  he  is  seldom  found,  in  Tristram  Shandy,  at  any 
rate,  to  have  transferred  them  to  his  own  pages  out  of  a 
mere  indolent  inclination  to  save  himself  the  trouble  of 
composition.  He  takes  them  less  as  substitutes  than  as 
groundwork  for  his  own  invention — as  so  much  material 
for  his  own  inventive  powers  to  work  upon ;  and  those 
powers  do  generally  work  upon  them  with  conspicuous 
skill  of  elaboration.  The  series  of  cuttings,  for  instance, 
which  he  makes  from  Burton,  on  the  occasion  of  Bobby 
Shandy's  death,  are  w^oven  into  the  main  tissue  of  the  dia- 
logue with  remarkable  ingenuity  and  naturalness ;  and  the 
bright  strands  of  his  own  unborrowed  humour  fly  flashing 
across  the  fabric  at  every  transit  of  the  shuttle.  Or,  to 
change  the  metaphor,  we  may  say  that  in  almost  every  in- 
stance the  jewels  that  so  glitter  in  their  stolen  setting  were 
cut  and  set  by  Sterne  himself.  Let  us  allow  that  the  most 
expert  of  lapidaries  is  not  justified  in  stealing  his  settings ; 
but  let  us  still  not  forget  that  {lia  jewels  are  his,  or  permit 
our  disapproval  of  his  laxity  of  principle  to  make  us  un- 
just to  his  consummate  skill. 


CHAPTER  X. 

STYLE    AND    GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS. — HUMOUR    AND 
SENTIMENT. 

To  talk  of  "  the  style  "  of  Sterne  is  almost  to  play  one  of 
those  tricks  with  language  of  which  he  himself  was  so 
fond.  For  there  is  hardly  any  definition  of  the  word 
which  can  make  it  possible  to  describe  him  as  having  any 
style  at  all.  It  is  not  only  that  he  manifestly  recognized 
no  external  canons  whereto  to  conform  the  expression  of 
his  thoughts,  but  he  had,  apparently,  no  inclination  to  in- 
vent and  observe — except,  indeed,  in  the  most  negative  of 
senses — any  style  of  his  own.  The  "  style  of  Sterne,"  in 
short,  is  as  though  one  should  say  "  the  form  of  Proteus." 
He  was  determined  to  be  uniformly  eccentric,  regularly^  a 
irregular,  and  that  was  alL  His  digressions^  his  asides, 
and  his  fooleries  in  general  would,  of  course,  have  in  any 
case  necessitated  a  certain  general  jerkiness  of  manner; 
but  this  need  hardly  have  extended  itself  habitually  to  the 
structure  of  individual  sentences,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact 
he  can  at  times  write,  as  he  does  for  the  most  part  in  his 
Sermons,  in  a  style  which  is  not  the  less  vigorous  for  be- 
ing fairly  correct.  But  as  a  rule  his  mode  of  expressing 
himself  is  destitute  of  any  pretensions  to  precision  ;  and 
in  many  instances  it  is  a  perfect  marvel  of  literary  slip- 
shod.    Nor  is  there  any  ground  for  believing  that  the 


140  STERNE.  [cTiap. 

slovenliness    was   invariably   intentional.      Sterne's   truly 
hideous   Frencli  —  Frencli  at   which   even   Stratford-atte- 
Bowe  would  have  stood  aghast — is  in  itself  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  a  natural  insensibility  to  grammatical  accuracy. 
Here  there  can  be  no  suspicion  of  designed  defiance  of 
rules ;  and  more  than  one  solecism  of  rather  a  serious  kind 
in  his  use  of  English  words  and  phrases  affords  confirm- 
atory testimony  to  the  same  point.     His  punctuation  is 
fearful  and  wonderful,  even  for  an  age  in  which  the  ra- 
tionale of  punctuation  was  more  imperfectly  understood 
than  it  is  at  present ;  and  this,  though  an  apparently  slight 
matter,  is  not  without  value  as  an  indication  of  ways  of 
thought.     But  if  we  can  hardly  describe  Sterne's  style  as 
being  in  the  literary  sense  a  style  at  all,  it  has  a  very  dis- 
tinct colloquial  character  of  its  own,  and  as  such  it  is  near- 
ly as  much  deserving  of  praise  as  from  the  literary  point 
of  view  it  is  open  to  exception.    Chaotic  as  it  is  in  the  syn- 
)  tactical  sense,  it  is  a  perfectly  clear  vehicle  for  the  convey- 
/  ance  of  thought :  we  are  as  rarely  at  a  loss  for  the  meaning 
''  of  one  of  Sterne's  sentences  as  we  are,  for  very  different 
reasons,  for  the  meaning  of  one  of  Macaulay's.     And  his 
/j    language  is  so  full  of  life  and  colour,  his  tone  so  animated 
I  j    and  vivacious,  that  we  forget  we  are  reading  and  not  Usten- 
!  ;    ing,  and  we  are  as  little  disposed  to  be  exacting  in  respect 
to  form  as  though  we  w^ere  listeners  in  actual  fact.    Sterne's 
manner,  in  short,  may  be  that  of  a  bad  and  careless  writer, 
but  it  is  the  manner  of  a  first-rate  talker;    and  this,  of 
coui'se,  enhances  rather  than  detracts  from  the  unwearying 
charm  of  his  wit  and  humour. 

To  attempt  a  precise  and  final  distinction  between  these 
two  last-named  qualities  in  Sterne  or  any  one  else  would 
be  no  very  hopeful  task,  perhaps;  but  those  avIio  have  a 
keen  perception  of  either  find  no  great  difficulty  in  dis- 


X.]  STYLE  AXD  GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS.  141 

criminating,  as  a  matter  of  feeling,  between  the  two.  And 
what  is  true  of  the  qualities  themselves  is  true,  mutatis 
nuitandis,  of  the  men  by  whom  they  have  been  most  con- 
spicuously displayed.  Some  wits  have  been  humourists 
also ;  nearly  all  humourists  have  been  also  wits ;  yet  the 
two  fall,  on  the  whole,  into  tolerably  well-marked  classes, 
and  the  ordinary  uncritical  judgment  would,  probably,  en- 
able most  men  to  state  with  sufficient  certainty  the  class  to 
which  eacb  famous  name  in  the  world's  literature  belongs. 
Aristophanes,  Shakspeare,  Cervantes,  Moliere,  Swift,  Field- 
ing, Lamb,  Richter,  Carlyle  :  widely  as  these  waiters  differ 
from  each  other  in  style  and  genius,  the  least  skilled  read- 
er would  hardly  need  to  be  told  that  the  list  which  includes 
them  all  is  a  catalogue  of  humourists.  And  Cicero,  Lu- 
cian,  Pascal,  Voltaire,  Congreve,  Pope,  Sheridan,  Courier, 
Sydney  Smith — this,  I  suppose,  would  be  recognized  at 
once  as  an  enumeration  of  wits.  Some  of  these  humour- 
ists, like  Fielding,  like  Richter,  like  Carlyle,  are  always,  or 
almost  always,  humourists  alone.  Some  of  these  wits,  like 
Pascal,  like  Pope,  like  Courier,  are  wits  with  no,  or  but 
slight,  admixture  of  humour;  and  in  the  classification  of 
these  there  is  of  course  no  difficulty  at  all.  But  even  with 
the  wits  who  very  often  give  us  humour  also,  and  with  the 
humourists  who  as  often  delight  us  with  their  wit,  we  sel- 
dom find  ourselves  in  any  doubt  as  to  the  real  and  more 
essential  affinities  of  each.  It  is  not  by  the  wit  which  he 
has  infused  into  bis  talk,  so  much  as  by  the  humour  with 
whicb  he  has  delineated  the  character,  that  Shakspeare 
has  given  his  Falstaff  an  abiding  place  in  our  memories. 
It  is  not  the  repartees  of  Benedick  and  Beatrice,  but  the 
immortal  fatuity  of  Dogberry,  that  the  name  of  Much  Ado 
About  Nothing  recalls.  None  of  the  verbal  quips  of  Touch- 
stone tickle  us  like  his  exquisite  patronage  of  William  and 


142  ^  STERNE.  [chap. 

the  fascination  wliicli  he  exercises  over  the  mehmcholy 
Jaques.  And  it  is  the  same  throughout  all  Shakspeare. 
It  is  of  the  humours  of  Bottom,  and  Launce,  and  Shallow, 
and  Sly,  and  Aguecheek ;  it  is  of  the  laughter  that  treads 
upon  the  heels  of  horror  and  pity  and  awe,  as  we  listen  to 
the  Porter  in  Macbeth,  to  the  Grave-digger  in  Hamlet,- io 
the  Fool  in  Lear — it  is  of  these  that  we  think  w^hen  we 
think  of  Shakspeare  in  any  other  but  his  purely  poetic  mood. 
Whenever,  that  is  to  say,  we  think  of  him  as  anything  but 
a  poet,  we  think  of  him,  not  as  a  wit,  but  as  a  humourist. 
So,  too,  it  is  not  the  dagger-thrusts  of  the  I)rap'ier''s  Letters, 
but  the  broad  ridicule  of  the  Voyage  to  Laputa,  the  savage 
irony  of  the  Voyage  to  the  Houyhnhnms,  that  we  associate 
^vith  the  name  of  Swift.  And,  conversely,  it  is  the  cold, 
epigrammatic  glitter  of  Congreve's  dialogue,  the  fizz  and 
crackle  of  the  fireworks  which  Sheridan  serves  out  with  un- 
discriminating  hand  to  the  most  insignificant  of  his  charac- 
ters— it  is  this  which  stamps  the  work  of  these  dramatists 
with  characteristics  far  more  marked  than  any  which  be- 
long to  them  in  right  of  humorous  portraiture  of  human 
foibles  or  ingenious  invention  of  comic  incident. 

The  place  of  Sterne  is  unmistakably  among  writers  of 
the  former  class.  It  is  by  his  humour — his  humour  of 
character,  his  dramatic  as  distinct  from  his  critical  de- 
scriptive i:)er&onal  humour — though,  of  course,  he  possesses 
this  also,  as  all  humourists  must — that  he  lives  and  will  live. 
In  Tristram  Shandy,  as  in  the  Sermons,  there  is  a  suffi- 
ciency of  wit,  and  considerably  more  than  a  sufficiency  of 
humorous  reflection,  innuendo,  and  persiflage ;  but  it  is  the 
actors  in  his  almost  plotless  drama  who  have  established 
their  creator  in  his  niche  in  the  Temple  of  Fame.  We 
cannot,  indeed,  be  sure  that  what  has  given  him  his  hold 
upon  posterity  is  what  gave  him  his  popularity  with  his 


x]  HUMOUR  AND  SEXTDIEX 

contemporaries.  Oq  tlie  contrary,  it  is,  perhaps,  more 
probable  that  be  o^yed  bis  first  success  witb  tK^  public  of 
bis  day  to  tbose  eccentricities  wbicb  arc  for  us  a  lit^o  too 
consciously  eccentric — tbose  artifices  wbicb  fail  a  little 
conspicuously  in  tbe  ars  celandi  artem.  But  bowever  tbese 
tricks  may  bave  pleased  in  days  wben  sucb  tricts  were  new, 
tbey  mucb  more  often  ^yeary  tban  divert  us  now ;  and  I 
suspect  tbat  many  a  man  wbose  deligbt  in  tbe  Corporal 
and  bis  master,  in  Bridget  and  ber  mistress,  is  as  fresb  as 
ever,  declines  to  accompany  tlieir  creator  in  tbose  perpet- 
ual digressions  into  nonsense  or  serai-nonsense  tbe  fasbion 
of  wbicb  Sterne  borrowed  from  Eabelais,  witbout  Rabc- 
lais's  excuse  for  adopting  it.  To  us  of  tbis  day  tbe  real 
cbarm  and  distinction  of  tbe  book  is  due  to  tbe  marvellous 
combination  of  vigour  and  subtlety  in  its  portrayal  of 
cbaracter,  and  in  tbe  purity  and  delicacy  of  its  bum  our. 
Tbose  last  two  apparently  paradoxical  substantives  are 
ebosen  advisedly,  and  employed  as  tbe  most  convenient 
■way  of  introducing  tbat  disagreeable  question  wbicb  no 
commentator  on  Sterne  can  possibly  sbirk,  but  wbicb  ev- 
ery admirer  of  Sterne  must  approacb  witb  reluctance. 
Tbere  is,  of  course,  a  sense  in  wbicb  Sterne's  bumour — 
if,  indeed,  we  may  bestow  tbat  name  on  tbe  form  of  jocu- 
larity to  wbicb  I  refer — is  tbe  very  reverse  of  pure  and 
delicate :  a  sense  in  wbicb  it  is  impure  and  indelicate  in 
tbe  bigbest  degree.  On  tbis  it  is  necessary,  bowever  brief- 
ly, to  toucb ;  and  to  tbe  weigbty  and  many-counted  in- 
dictment wbicb  may  be  framed  against  Sterne  on  tbis 
bead  tbere  is,  of  course,  but  one  possible  plea — tbe  plea 
of  guilty.  Xay,  tbe  plea  must  go  furtber  tban  a  mere 
admission  of  tbe  offence ;  it  must  include  an  admission 
of  tbe  worst  motive,  tbe  worst  spirit  as  animating  tbe  of- 
fender.    It  is  not  necessary  to  my  purpose,  nor  doubtless 


144  STERXE.  [chap. 

congenial  to  the  taste  of  the  reader,  that  I  slioiild  enter 
upon  any  critical  analysis  of  this  quality  in  the  author's 
work,  or  compare  him  in  this  respect  with  the  two  oth- 
,er  great  humourists  who  have  been  the  worst  offenders 
in  the  same  way.  In  one  of  those  highly  interesting  criti- 
cisms of  English  literature  which,  even  when  they  most 
conspicuously  miss  the  mark,  are  so  instructive  to  English- 
men, M.  Taine  has  instituted  an  elaborate  comparison — very 
much,  I  need  hardly  say,  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter — 
between  the  indecency  of  Swift  and  that  of  Rabelais — 
that  ''  good  giant,"  as  his  countryman  calls  him,  "  who 
rolls  himself  joyously  about  on  his  dunghill,  thinking  no 
evil."  And  no  doubt  the  world  of  literary  moralists  will 
ahvays  be  divided  upon  the  question — one  mainly  of  na- 
tional temperament — whether  mere  animal  spirits  or  seri- 
ous satiric  purpose  is  the  best  justification  for  offences 
against  cleanliness.  It  is,  of  course,  only  the  former  theo- 
ry, if  either,  which  could  possibly  avail  Sterne,  and  it  would 
need  an  unpleasantly  minute  analysis  of  this  characteristic 
in  his  writings  to  ascertain  how  far  M.  Taine's  eloquent 
defence  of  Rabelais  could  be  made  applicable  to  his  case. 
But  the  inquiry,  one  is  glad  to  think,  is  as  unnecessary  as 
it  would  be  disagreeable ;  for,  unfortunately  for  Sterne,  he 
must  be  condemned  on  a  quantitative  comparison  of  inde- 
cency, whatever  may  be  his  fate  when  compared  with 
these  other  two  great  writers  as  regards  the  quality  of 
their  respective  transgressions.  There  can  be  no  denying, 
I  mean,  that  Sterne  is  ofSJ^  writers  the  most  permeated 
,  and  penetrated  with  impurity  of  thought  and  suggestion ; 
that  in  no  other  writer  is  its  latent  presence  more  con- 
stantly felt,  even  if  there  bejinyjn  whom  it  is  more  often 
//Openly  obtruded.  The  unclean  spirit  pursues  him  every- 
where, disfiguring  his  scenes  of  humour,  demoralizing  his 


X.]  HUMOUR  AND  SEXTDIEXT.  145 

passages  of  serious  reflection,  debasing  even  Lis  senti- 
mental interludes.  His  coarseness  is  very  often  as  great 
a  blot  on  bis  art  as  on  bis  morality — a  tbing  wbicb  can 
very  rarely  be  said  of  eitber  Swiit  or  Rabelais ;  and  it  is 
sometimes  so  distinctly  fatal  a  blemisb  from  tbe  purely 
literary  point  of  view,  tbat  one  is  amazed  at  tbe  critical 
faculty  wbicb  could  bave  tolerated  its  presence. 

But  w'ben  all  tbis  bas  been  said  of  Sterne's  bumour  it 
still  remains  true  tbat,  in  anotber  sense  of  tbe  words  "  puri- 
ty "  and  "  delicacy,"  be  possesses  bumour  more  pure  and 
delicate  tban,  perbaps,  any  otber  writer  in  tbe  world  can 
sbow.  For  if  tbat  bumour  is  tbe  purest  and  most  deli- 
cate wbicb  is  tbe  freest  from  any  admixture  of  farce,  and 
produces  its  effects  witb  tbe  ligbtest  toucb,  and  tbe  least 
obligations  to  ridiculous  incident,  or  wbat  may  be  called 
tbe  "pbysical  grotesque,"  in  any  sbape  —  tben  one  can 
point  to  passages  from  Sterne's  pen  wbicb,  for  fulfilment 
of  tbese  conditions,  it  would  be  difficult  to  matcb  else- 
wbere.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  say  tbis  of  tbe  literary 
Gilray  wbo  drew  tbe  portrait  of  Dr.  Slop,  and  of  tbe  liter- 
ary Grimaldi  wbo  tormented  Pbutatorius  witb  tbe  bot 
cbestnut,  it  is  nevertbeless  tbe  fact  tbat  scene  after  scene 
may  be  cited  from  Tristram  Shandy,  and  tbose  tbe  most 
deligbtful  in  tbe  book,  wbicb  are  not  only  free  from  even 
tbe  momentary  intrusion  of  eitber  tbe  clown  or  tbe  carica- 
turist, but  even  from  tbe  presence  of  "comic  properties" 
(as  actors  would  call  tbem)  of  any  kind:  scenes  of  wbicb 
tbe  external  setting  is  of  tbe  simplest  possible  cbaracter, 
wbile  tbe  bum'our  is  of  tbat  deepest  and  most  penetrative 
kind  wbicb  springs  from  tbe  eternal  incongruities  of  bu- 
man  nature,  tbe  ever -recurring  cross -purposes  of  buman 
lives. 

Carlyle  classes  Sterne  witb  Cervantes  among  tbe  great 


146  STERNE.  [chap. 

humourists  of  the  world ;  and  from  one,  and  that  the 
most  important,  point  of  view  the  praise  is  not  extrava- 
gant. By  no  other  writer  besides  Sterne,  perhaps,  since 
the  days  of  the  Spanish  humourist,  have  the  vast  incon- 
gruities of  human  character  been  set  fortli  with  so  mas- 

/  terly  a  hand.  It  is  in  virtue  of  the  new  insight  which  his 
humour  opens  to  us  of  the  immensity  and  variety  of  man's 
life  that  Cervantes  makes  us  feel  that  he  is  great :  not 
delightful  merely — not  even  eternally  delightful  only,  and 
secure  of  immortality  through  the  perennial  human  need 
of  joy — but  great,  but  immortal,  in  right  of  that  which 
makes  Shakspeare  and  the  Greek  dramatists  immortal, 
namely,  the  power,  not  alone  over  the  pleasure-loving  part 
of  man's  nature,  but  over  that  equally  universal  but  more 
enduring  element  in  it,  his  emotions  of  wonder  and  of 
awe.  It  is  to  this  greater  power — this  control  over  a 
greater  instinct  than  the  human  love  of  joy,  that  Cer- 
vantes owes  his  greatness ;  and  it  will  be  found,  though  it 
may  seem  at  first  a  hard  saying,  that  Sterne  shares  this 

L^ower  with  Cervantes.  To  pass  from  Quixote  and  Sancho 
to  Walter  and  Toby  Shandy  involves,  of  course,  a  startling 
change  of  dramatic  key — a  notable  lowering  of  dramatic 
tone.  It  is  almost  like  passing  from  poetry  to  prose :  it 
is  certainly  passing  from  the  poetic  in  spirit  and  surround- 
ings to  the  profoundly  prosaic  in  fundamental  conception 
and  in  every  individual  detail.  But  those  who  do  not 
allow  accidental  and  external  dissimilarities  to  obscure  for 
them  the  inward  and  essential  resemblances  of  things, 
must  often,  I  think,  have  experienced  from  one  of  the 
Shandy  dialogues  the  same  sort  of  impression  that  they 
derive  from  some  of  the  most  nobly  humorous  colloquies 
between  the  knight  and  his  squire,  and  must  have  been 
conscious  through  all  outward  differences  of  key  and  tone 


X.]  HUMOUE  AXD  SEXTIilEXT.  147 

of  a  common  element  in  each.  It  is,  of  course,  a  resem- 
blance of  relations  and  not  of  personalities ;  for  though 
there  is  something  of  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha  in  Mr. 
Shandy,  there  is  nothing  of  Sancho  about  his  brother. 
But  the  serio-comic  game  of  cross-purposes  is  the  same 
between  both  couples  ;  and  what  one  may  call  the  irony 
of  human  intercourse  is  equally  profound,  and  pointed 
with  equal  subtlety,  in  each.  In  the  Spanish  romance,  of 
course,  it  is  not  likely  to  be  missed.  It  is  enough  in  itself 
that  the  deranged  brain  which  takes  windmills  for  giants, 
and  carriers  for  knights,  and  Rosinante  for  a  Bucephalus, 
has  fixed  upon  Saucho  Panza — the  crowning  proof  of  its 
mania — as  the  fitting  squire  of  a  knight-errant.  To  him 
— to  this  compound  of  somnolence,  shrewdness,  and  good 
nature — to  this  creature  with  no  more  tincture  of  romantic 
idealism  than  a  wine-skin,  the  knight  addresses,  without 
misgiving,  his  lofty  dissertations  on  the  glories  and  the 
duties  of  chivalry — the  squire  responding  after  his  fash- 
ion. And  thus  these  two  hold  converse,  contentedly  in- 
comprehensible to  each  other,  and  with  no  suspicion  that 
they  are  as  incapable  of  interchanging  ideas  as  the  in- 
habitants of  two  different  planets.  With  what  heart- 
stirring  mirth,  and  yet  with  what  strangely  deeper  feel- 
ing of  the  infinite  variety  of  human  nature,  do  we  follow 
their  converse  throughout !  Yet  Quixote  and  Sancho  are 
not  more  life-like  and  human,  nor  nearer  together  at  one 
point  and  farther  apart  at  another,  than  are  Walter 
Shandy  and  his  brother.  The  squat  little  Spanish  peasant 
is  not  more  gloriously  incapable  of  following  the  chivalric 
vagaries  of  his^niaster^than  the  simple  soldier  is  of  grac- 
ing the  philosophic  crotchets  of  his  brother.  Both  couples 
are  in  sympathetic  "contact  absolute  and  complete^  one 
point ;  at  another  they  are  "  poles  asunder  "  both  of  them. 


148  STERXE.  [chap. 

//  And  in  botli  contrasts  there  is  that  sense  of  futility  and 
faihire,  of  alienation  and  misunderstanding — that  element 
of  underlying  pathos,  in  short,  which  so  strangely  gives  its 
keenest  salt  to  humour.  In  both  alike  there  is  the  same 
suggestion  of  the  Infinite  of  disparity  bounding  the  finite 
of  resemblance — of  the  Incommensurable  in  man  and  nat- 
ure, beside  which  all  minor  uniformities  sink  into  insio;- 

,\^ificance. 
\  The  pathetic  element  which  underlies  and  deepens  the 
/humour  is,  of  course,  produced  in  the  two  cases  in  two 
'  exactly  opposite  ways.  In  both  cases  it  is  a  picture  of 
human  simplicity — of  a  noble  and  artless  nature  out  of 
harmony  with  its  surroundings — which  moves  us ;  but 
wliereas  in  tlie  Spanish  romance  the  simplicity  is  that  of 
the  incomjms,  in  the  English  novel  it  is  that  of  the  man 
with  whom  the  incompris  consorts.  If  there  is  pathos  as 
well  as  humour,  and  deepening  the  humour,  in  the  figure 
of  the  distraught  knight-errant  talking  so  hopelessly  over 
the  head  of  his  attached  squire's  morality,  so  too  there  is^ 
pathos,  giving  depth  to  the  humour  of  the  eccentric-^i- 
losopher,  shooting  so  hopelessly  wide  of  tke  intellectual 
appreciation  of  the  most  affectionate  of  brothers.  One's  _ 
sympathy,  perhaps,  is  even  more  strongly  -  appealed  to  in 
the  latter  than  in  the  former  case,  because  the  effort  of  the 
good  Captain  to  understand  is  far  greater  than  that  of  the 
Don  to  make  himself  understood,  and  the  concern  of  the 
former  at  his  failure  is  proportionately  more  marked  than 
that  of  the  latter  at  his.  And  the  general  rapport  between 
one  of  the  two  ill-assorted  pairs  is  much  closer  than  that 

/  of  the  other.     It  is,  indeed,  the  tantalizing  approach  to_a_ 
mutual  understanding  which  gives  so  much  more  subtle 

x/  a  zest  to  the  humour  of  the  relations  between  the  two 
brothers  Shandy  than  to  that  which  arises  out  of  the  re- 


X.]  HOIOUR  AXD  SEXTDIEXT.  149 

lations  between  the  philosoplier  and  Lis  wife.     The  broad  /  / 
comedy  of  the  dialogues  between  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Shandy  is      / 
irresistible  in   its    way :    but  it  is  broad  comedy. ,   The 
philosopher  knows  that  his  wife  does  not  comprehend 
him :  she  knows  that  she  never  will ;  and  neither  of  them 
mucli  cares.    The  husband  snubs  her  openly  for  her  mental 
defects,  and  she  with  perfect  placidity  accepts  his  rebukes.  ^ 
"Master,"  as  he  once  complains,  "of  one  of  the  finest 
chains  of  reasoning  in  the  world,  he  is  unable  for  the  soul 
of  him  to  get  a  single  link  of  it  into  the  head  of  his  wife ;" 
but  we  neverjiear  him  lamenting  in  this  serio-comic. fash- 
ion over  his  brother's  inabilit}^  to  follow  his  processes  of 
reasonino*.     That  is  too   serious  a  matter  with  both  of 
them ;  their  mutual  desire  to  share  each  other's  ideas  and 
tastes  is  too  strong ;  and  each  time  that  the  philosopher 
shows  his  hppatience  with  thasoklier's  fortification-hobby, 
or  the  soldier  breaks  his  honest  shins  over  one  of  the  phi-' 
losopher's  crotchets,  the  regret  and  remorse  on  either  side 
is  equally  acute  and  sincere.     It  must  be  admitted,  how-y 
jevfir^lliat  Captain  Shandy  is  the  one  who  the  more  fre- 
quently subjects  himself  to  pangs  of  this  sort,  and  who  is 
thelnore  innocent  sufferer  of  the  two. 

From  the  broad  and  deep  humour  of  this  central  con-  , 
ception  of  contrast  flow  as  from  a  head-water  innumerable/ 
rills  of  comedy  through  many  and  many  a  page  of  dia-/ 
logue ;  but  not,  of  course,  from  this  source  alone.     Uncle  ^^ 
Toby  is  ever  delightful,  even  when  his  brother  is  not  near 
liim  as  his  foil ;  the  faithful  Corporal  brings  out  another 
side  of  his  character,  upon  which  we  linger  with  equal 
pleasure^ of  Qontemplation ;  the  allurements  of  the  \Yidow 
Wadman  reveal  him  to  us  in  yet  another — but  always  in  a 
captivating  aspect.     There  is,  too,  one  need  hardly  say,  an 
abundance  of  humour,  of  a  high,  though  not  the  highest, 


150  STERNE.  [chap. 

order  in  the  minor  characters  of  the  story — in  Mrs.  Shan- 
dy, in  the  fascinating  ^vidow,  and  even,  under  the  coarse 
lines  of  the  physical  caricature,  in  the  keen  little  Catholic, 
Slop  himself.  But  it  is  in  Toby  Shandy  alone  that  hu- 
mour reaches  that  supreme  level  which  it  is  only  capable] 
,'of  attaining  when  the  collision  of  contrasted  qualities  in  a  I 
human  character  produces  a  corresjDonding  conflict  of  the 
emotions  of  mirth  and  tenderness  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  contemplate  it. 

This,  however,  belongs  more  rightfully  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  creative  and  dramatic  element  in  Sterne's  gen- 
ius ;  and  an  earlier  place  in  the  analysis  is  claimed  by 
that  power  over  the  emotion  of  pity  upon  which  Sterne, 
beyond  question,  prided  himself  more  highly  than  upon 
any  other  of  his  gifts.  He  preferred,  we  can  plainly  see,  / 
to  think  of  himself,  not  as  the  great  humourist,  but  as  thej 
great  sentimentalist;  and  though  the  w^ord  "sentiment"' 
had  something  even  in  his  day  of  the  depreciatory  mean- 
ing which  distinguishes  it  nowadays  from  "pathos,"  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  thing  appeared  to  Sterne  to  be, 
on  the  whole,  and  both  in  life  and  literature,  rather  admi- 
rable than  the  reverse. 

What,  then,  were  his  notions  of  true  "  sentiment "  in 
literature?     We  have  seen  elsewhere  that  he  repeats — it   \ 
would  appear  unconsciously — and  commends  the  canon 

which  Horace  propounds  to  the  tragic  poet  in  the  words:   i\ 

I 
"  Si  vis  me  flere,  dolendura 
Primum  ipsi  tibi :  tunc  tua  rae  infortunia  Igedent." 

And  that  canon  is  sound  enough,  no  doubt,  in  the  sense 
in  which  it  was  meant,  and  in  its  relation  to  the  person  to 
whom  it  was  addressed.  A  tragic  drama,  peopled  with 
heroes  who  set  forth  their  woes  in  frigid  and  unimpas- 


X.]  HUMOUR  AXD  SEXTDIEXT.  151 

sioned  verse,  ^vill  unquestionably  leave  its  audience  as  cold 
as  itself.  Nor  is  this  true  of  drama  alone.  All  poetry, 
indeed,  whether  dramatic  or  other,  presupposes  a  sympa- 
thetic unity  of  emotion  between  the  poet  and  those  whom 
he  addresses ;  and  to  this  extent  it  is  obviously  true  that 
he  must  feel  before  they  can.  Horace,  who  was  (what 
every  literary  critic  is  not)  a  man  of  the  world  and  an 
observer  of  human  nature,  did  not,  of  course,  mean  that 
this  capacity  for  feeling  was  all,  or  even  the  chief  part,  of 
the  poetic  faculty.  He  must  have  seen  many  an  "intense" 
young  Roman  make  that  pathetic  error  of  the  young  in  all 
countries  and  of  all  periods — the  error  of  mistaking  the 
capacity  of  emotion  for  the  gift  of  expression.  He  did, 
however,  undoubtedly  mean  that  a  poet's  power  of  affect- 
ing others  presupposes  passion  in  himself ;  and,  as  regards 
the  poet,  he  was  right.  But  his  criticism  takes  no  account 
whatever  of  one  form  of  appeal  to  the  emotions  which  has 
been  brought  by  later  art  to  a  high  pitch  of  perfection, 
but  with  which  the  personal  feeling  of  the  artist  has  not 
much  more  to  do  than  the  "passions"  of  an  auctioneer's 
clerk  have  to  do  with  the  compilation  of  his  inventory.  x\ 
poet  himself,  Horace  wrote  for  poets ;  to  him  the  pathetic 
implied  the  ideal,  the  imaginative,  the  rhetorical ;  he  lived 
before  the  age  of  Realism  and  the  Realists,  and  would 
scarcely  have  comprehended  either  the  men  or  the  method 
if  he  could  have  come  across  them.  Had  he  done  so,  how- 
ever, he  would  have  been  astonished  to  find  his  canon  re- 
versed, and  to  have  perceived  that  the  primary  condition 
of  the  realist's  success,  and  the  distinctive  note  of  those 
■writers  who  have  pressed  genius  into  the  service  of  real- 
ism, is  that  they  do  not  share — that  they  are  unalterably 
and  ostentatiously  free  from — the  emotions  to  which  they 
appeal  in  their  readers.     A  fortunate  accident  has  enabled 


152  STERXE.  [chap. 

us  to  compare  the  treatment  wbicli  the  world's  greatest 
tragic  poet  and  its  greatest  master  of  realistic  tragedy  Lave 
respectively  applied  to  virtually  the  same  subject ;  and  the 
two  methods  are  never  likely  to  be  again  so  impressively 
contrasted  as  in  King  Lear  and  Le  Pere  Goriot.  But,  in 
truth,  it  must  be  impossible  for  any  one  who  feels  Balzac's 
power  not  to  feel  also  how  it  is  heightened  by  Balzac's 
absolute  calm — a  calm  entirely  different  from  that  stern 
composure  which  was  merely  a  point  of  style  and  not  an 
attitude  of  the  heart  with  the  old  Greek  tragedians — a 
calm  which,  unlike  theirs,  insulates,  so  to  speak,  and  is  in- 
tended to  insulate,  the  writer,  to  the  end  that  his  individu- 
ality, of  which  only  the  electric  current  of  sympathy  ever 
makes  a  reader  conscious,  may  disappear,  and  the  charac- 
ters of  the  drama  stand  forth  the  more  life-like  from  the 
complete  concealment  of  the  hand  that  moves  them. 

Of  this  kind  of  art  Horace,  as  has  been  said,  knew  noth- 
ing, and  his  canon  only  applies  to  it  by  the  rule  of  contra- 
ries. Undoubtedly,  and  in  spite  of  the  marvels  which  one 
great  genius  has  wrought  with  it,  it  is  a  form  lower  than 
the  poetic  —  essentially  a  prosaic,  and  in  many  or  most 
hands  an  unimaginative,  form  of  art ;  but  for  this  very  rea- 
son^ that  it  demands  nothing  of  its  average  practitioner 
but  a  keen  eye  for  facts,  great  and  small,  and  a  knack  of 
graphically  recording  them,  it  has  become  a  far  more  com- 
monly and  successfully  cultivated  form  of  art  than  any 
other.  As  to  the  question  who  are  its  practitioners,  it 
would,  of  course,  be  the  merest  dogmatism  to  commit 
one's  self  to  any  attempt  at  rigid  classification  in  such  a 
matter.  There  are  few  if  any  writers  who  can  be  describ- 
ed without  qualification  either  as  realists  or  as  idealists. 
Nearly  all  of  them,  probably,  are  realists  at  one  moment 
and  in  one  mood,  and  idealists  at  other  moments  and  in 


X,]  HUMOUR  AXD  SENTIMENT.  153 

other  moods.     All  that  need  be  insisted  on  is  that  the 
methods  of  the  two  forms  of  art  arc  essentially  distinct, 
and  that  artistic  failure  must  result  from  any  attempt  to 
combine  them  ;  for,  whereas  the  primary  condition  of  sucA 
cess  in  the  one  case  is  that  the  reader  should  feel  the  sym- 
pathetic presence  of  the  writer,  the  primary  condition  of 
success  in  the  other  is  that  the  writer  should  efface  him- 
self from  the  reader's  consciousness  altogether.    And  it  is, 
I  think,  the  defiance  of  these  conditions  which  explains 
why  so  much  of  Sterne's  deliberately  pathetic  writing  is, 
from  the  artistic  point  of  view,  a  failure.     It  is  this  which 
makes  one  feel  so  much  of  it  to  be  strained  and  unnatural, 
and  which  brings  it  to  pass  that  some  of  his  most  ambi- 
tious efforts  leave  the  reader  indifferent,  or  even  now  and 
then  contemptuous.    In  those  passages  of  pathos  in  which 
the  effect  is  distinctly  sought  by  realistic  means  Sterne  is 
perpetually  ignoring  the  "self-denying  ordinance"  of  his 
adopted  method— perpetually  obtruding  his  own  individu- 
ality, and  begging  us,  as  it  were,  to  turn  from  the  picture 
to  the  artist,  to  cease  gazing  for  a  moment  at  his  touchmg 
creation,  and  to  admire  the  fine  feeling,  the  exquisitely 
sympathetic  nature  of  the  man  who  created  it.    No  doubt,/ 
as  we  must  in  fairness  remember,  it  was  part  of  his  "  hu- 
mour "—in  Ancient  Pistol's  sense  of  the  word— to  do  this ; 
it  is  true,  no  doubt  (and  a  truth  which  Sterne's  most  fa- 
mous critic  was  too  prone  to  ignore),  that  his  sentiment  is 
not  always  meant  for  serious;'  nay,  the  very  word  "senti- 

1  Surely  it  ^as  not  so  meant,  for  instance,  in  the  passage  about 
the  desohUgeante,  which  had  been  "standing  so  many  months  unpitied 
in  the  corner  of  Monsieur  Dessein's  coach-yard.  Much,  indeed,  was 
not  to  be  said  for  it,  but  something  might ;  and,  when  a  few  words 
wiU  rescue  Misery  out  of  her  distress,  I  hate  the  man  who  can  be  a 
churl  of  them."    "  Does  anybody,"  asks  Thackeray  in  strangely  mat- 


154  STERNE.  [chap. 

mental "  itself,  tliongli  in  Sterne's  day,  of  course,  it  had 
acquired  but  a  part  of  its  present  disparaging  significance, 

^a  sufficient  proof  of  that.  But  there  are,  nevertheless, 
plenty  of  passages,  both  in  Tristram  Shandy  and  the  Sen- 
timental Journey,  where  the  intention  is  wholly  and  un- 
mixedly  pathetic — where  the  smile  is  not  for  a  moment 
meant  to  compete  with  the  tear — which  are,  nevertheless, 
it  must  be  owned,  complete  failures,  and  failures  traceable 
with  much  certainty,  or  so  it  seems  to  me,  to  the  artistic 

I  error  above-mentioned. 

In  one  famous  case,  indeed,  the  failure  can  hardly  be  de- 
scribed as  other  than  ludicrous.  The  figure  of  the  dis- 
traught Maria  of  Moulines  is  tenderly  drawn ;  the  accesso- 
ries of  the  picture — her  goat,  her  dog,  her  pipe,  her  song 
to  the  Virgin — though  a  little  theatrical,  perhaps,  are  skil- 
fully touched  in ;  and  so  long  as  the  Sentimental  Traveller 
keeps  our  attention  fixed  upon  her  and  them  the  scene 
prospers  well  enough.  But,  after  having  bidden  us  duly 
note  how  "the  tears  trickled  down  her  cheeks,"  the  Trav^- 
eller  continues :  "  I  sat  down  close  by  her,  and  Maria  let 
me  wipe  them  away  as  they  fell  with  my  handkerchief. 
I  then  steeped  it  in  my  own — and  then  in  hers — and  then 
in  mine — and  then  I  wiped  hers  again ;  and  as  I  did  it  I 
felt  such  undescribable  emotions  within  me  as,  I  am  sure, 
could  not  be  accounted  for  from  any  combinations  of  mat- 
ter and  motion."  The  reader  of  this  may  well  ask  him- 
self in  wonderment  whether  he  is  really  expected  to  make 

ter-of-fact  fashion,  "believe  that  this  is  a  real  sentiment?  that  this 
hixury  of  generosity,  this  gallant  rescue  of  Misery — out  of  an  old 
cab — is  genuine  feeling?"  Nobody,  wc  should  say.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  anybody — or  did  anybody  before  Thackeray — sug- 
gest that  it  was  meant  to  pass  for  genuine  feeling  ?  Is  it  not  an  ob- 
vious piece  of  mock  pathetic  ? 


s.]  HUMOUR  ASD  SEXTIMEXT.  155 

a  third  in  the  lachrymose  group.  AVe  look  at  the  passage] 
again,  and  more  carefully,  to  see  if,  after  all,  we  may  not 
be  intended  to  laugh,  and  not  to  cry  at  it ;  but  on  finding, 
as  clearly  appears,  that  we  actually  are  intended  to  cry  at 
it  the  temptation  to  laugh  becomes  almost  irresistible./ 
AYe  proceed,  however,  to  the  account  of  Maria's  wander- 
ings to  Rome  ancl  back,  and  we  come  to  the  pretty  passage 
which  follows : 

"  How  she  had  borue  it,  and  how  she  had  got  supported,  she  could 
not  tell ;  but  God  tempers  the  wind,  said  Maria,  to  the  shorn  lamb. 
Shorn  indeed !  and  to  the  quick,  said  I ;  and  wast  thou  in  my  own 
land,  where  I  have  a  cottage,  I  would  take  thee  to  it,  and  shelter  thee ; 
thou  shouldst  eat  of  my  own  bread  and  drink  of  my  own  cup ;  I 
would  be  kind  to  thy  Sylvio  ;  in  all  thy  weaknesses  and  wanderings 
I  would  seek  after  thee,  and  bring  thee  back.  When  the  sun  went 
down  I  would  say  my  prayers  ;  and  when  I  had  done  thou  shouldst 
play  thy  evening-song  upon  thy  pipe ;  nor  would  the  incense  of  my 
sacrifice  be  worse  accepted  for  entering  heaven  along  with  that  of  a 
broken  heart." 

But  then  follows  more  whimpering : 

"  Xature  melted  within  me  [continues  Sterne]  as  I  said  this ;  and 
Maria  observing,  as  I  took  out  my  handkerchief,  that  it  was  steeped 
too  much  already  to  be  of  use,  Avould  needs  go  wash  it  in  the  stream. 
And  where  will  you  dry  it,  Maria  ?  said  I.  Fll  dry  it  in  my  bosom, 
said  she ;  'twill  do  me  good.  And  is  your  heart  still  so  warm,  Maria  ? 
said  I.  I  touched  upon  the  string  on  which  hung  all  her  sorrows. 
She  looked  with  wistful  disorder  for  some  time  in  my  face  ;  and  then, 
without  saying  anything,  took  her  pipe  and  played  her  service  to  the 
Virgin." 

"Which  are  we  meant  to  look  at — the  sorrows  of  Maria  ? 
or  the  sensibilities  of  the  Sentimental  Traveller?  or  the 
condition  of  the  pocket-handkerchief  ?  I  think  it  doubt- 
ful whether  any  writer  of  the  first  rank  has  ever  perpe- 
trated so  disastrous  a  literary  failure  as  this  scene ;  but  the  / 


156  STERXE.  [cuap. 

main  cause  of  that  failure  appears  to  me  not  doubtful  at 
/^all.  The  artist  has  no  business  within  the  frame  of  the 
picture,  and  his  intrusion  into  it  has  spoilt  it.  The  method 
adopted  from  the  commencement  is  ostentatiously  objec- 
tive :  we  are  taken  straight  into  Maria's  presence,  and  bid- 
den to  look  at  and  to  pity  the  unhappy  maiden  as  de- 
scribed by  the  Traveller  who  met  her.  No  attempt  is 
made  to  place  us  at  the  outset  in  sympathy  with  him ;  he, 
until  he  thrusts  himself  before  us,  with  his  streaming  eyes, 
and  his  drenched  pocket-handkerchief,  is  a  mere  reporter 
of  the  scene  before  him,  and  he  and  his  tears  are  as  much 
out  of  place  as  if  he  were  the  compositor  who  set  up  the 
type.  It  is  not  merely  that  we  don't  want  to  know  how 
the  scene  affected  him,  and  that  we  resent  as  an  imperti- 
nence the  elaborate  account  of  his  tender  emotions ;  we 
don't  wish  to  be  reminded  of  his  presence  at  all.  For,  as 
we  can  know  nothing  (effectively)  of  Maria's  sorrows  ex- 
cept as  given  in  her  appearance — the  historical  recital  of 
them  and  their  cause  being  too  curt  and  bald  to  be  able 
to  move  us — the  best  chance  for  moving  our  compassion 
for  her  is  to  make  the  illusion  of  her  presence  as  dramati- 
cally real  as  possible ;  a  chance  which  is,  therefore,  com- 
pletely destroyed  when  the  author  of  the  illusion  insists 
]_on  thrusting  himself  between  ourselves  and  the  scene. 

But,  in  truth,  this  whole  episode  of  Maria  of  Moulines 
was,  like  more  than  one  of  Sterne's  efforts  after  the  pa- 
thetic, condemned  to  failure  from  the  very  conditions  of 
its  birth.  These  abortive  efforts  are  no  natural  growth 
of  his  artistic  genius ;  they  proceed  rather  from  certain 
morbidly  stimulated  impulses  of  his  moral  nature  which 
he  forced  his  artistic  genius  to  subserve.  He  had  true 
pathetic  power,  simple  yet  subtle,  at  his  command;  but 
it  visited  him  unsought,  and  by  inspiration  from  without. 


X.]  HUMOUR  AXD  SEXXDIE>'T.  107 

It  came  when  he  was  in  tlie  dramatic  and  not  in  tbc  in- 
trospective mood ;  when  lie  was  thinking  honestly  of  his 
characters,  and  not  of  himself.  But  he  was,  unfortunately,  ^^ 
too  prone  —  and  a  long  course  of  moral  self-indulgence 
had  confirmed  him  in  it — to  the  habit  of  carcssino-  his 
own  sensibilities ;  and  the  result  of  this  was  always  to  set 
him  upon  one  of  those  attempts  to  be  pathetic  of  malice 
prepense  of  which  Maria  of  Moulines  is  one  example,  and 
the  too  celebrated  dead  donkey  of  Xampont  another.  "  It 
is  agreeably  and  skilfully  done,  that  dead  jackass,"  writes 
Tliackeray ;  "  like  M.  de  Soubise's  cook  on  the  campaign, 
Sterne  dresses  it,  and  serves  it  up  quite  tender,  and  with 
a  very  piquante  sauce.  But  tears,  and  fine  feelings,  and 
a  white  pocket-handkerchief,  and  a  funeral  sermon,  and 
horses  and  feathers,  and  a  procession  of  mutes,  and  a 
hearse  with  a  dead  donkey  inside  I  Bsha  I  Mounte- 
bank I  1*11  not  give  thee  one  penny-piece  for  that  trick, 
donkey  and  all."  That  is  vigorous  ridicule,  and  not  whol- 
ly undeserved;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  not  entirely  de- 
served. There  is  less  of  artistic  trick,  it  seems  to  me,  and  i 
more  of  natural  foible,  about  Sterne's  literary  sentiment  [ 
than  Thackeray  was  ever  willing  to  believe ;  and  I  can  find  ( 
nothing  worse,  though  nothing  better,  in  the  dead  ass  of 
Kimpont  than  in  Maria  of  Moulines.  I  do  not  think  there~^v 
is  any  conscious  simulation  of  feeling  in  this  Xairypont 
scene;  it  is  that  the  feeling  itself  is  overstrained — that 
Sterne,  hugging,  as  usual,  his  own  sensibilities,  mistook 
their  value  in  expression  for  the  purposes  of  art.  The  / 
Sentimental  Traveller  does  not  obtrude  himself  to  the 
same  extent  as  in  the  scene  at  Moulines ;  but  a  little  con- 
sideration of  the  scene  will  show  how  much  Sterne  re- 
lied on  the  mere  presentment  of  the  fact  that  here  was 
an  unfortunate  peasant  who  had  lost  his  dumb  companion, 


^ 


153  STERNE.  [chap. 

and  here  a  tender-hearted  gentleman  looking  on  and  pity- 
ing liim.  As  for  any  attempts  to  bring  out,  by  objective 
dramatic  touches,  either  the  grievousness  of  the  bereave- 
ment or  the  grief  of  the  mourner,  such  attempts  as  are 
made  to  do  this  arc  either  commonplace  or  "  one  step  in 
advance  "  of  the  sublime.  Tahe  this,  for  instance :  "  The 
mourner  was  sitting  upon  a  stone  bench  at  the  door,  with 
his  ass's  pannel  and  its  bridle  on  one  side,  which  he  took 
up  from  time  to  time,  then  laid  them  down,  looked  at 
them,  and  shook  his  head.  He  then  took  the  crust  of 
bread  out  of  his  wallet  again,  as  if  to  eat  it ;  held  it  some 
time  in  his  hand,  then  laid  it  upon  the  bit  of  his  ass's 
bridle — looked  wistfully  at  the  little  arrangement  he  had 
made — and  then  gave  a  sigh.     The  simplicity  of  his  grief 

f^rew  numbers  about  him,"  &c.  Simplicity,  indeed,  of  a 
marvellous  sort  which  could  show  itself  by  so  extraordina- 
ry a  piece  of  acting  as  this!  Is  there  any  critic  who  candid- 
ly thinks  it  natural — I  do  not  mean  in  the  sense  of  mere 
every-day  probabilit}^,  but  of  conformity  to  the  laws  of  hu- 
man character?  Is  it  true  that  in  any  country,  among  any 
people,  however  emotional,  grief — real,  unaffected,  un-self- 
conscious  grief — ever  did  or  ever  could  display  itself  by 
such  a  trick  as  that  of  laying  a  piece  of  bread  on  the  bit 
of  a  dead  ass's  bridle?  Do  we  not  feel  that  if  we  had 
been  on  the  point  of  offering  comfort  or  alms  to  the 
mourner,  and  saw  him  go  through  this  extraordinary  piece 
of  pantomime,  we  should  have  buttoned  up   our  hearts 

Vand  pockets  forthwith  ?  Sentiment,  again,  sails  very  near 
the  wind  of  the  ludicrous  in  the  reply  to  the  Traveller's 
remark  that  the  mourner  had  been  a  merciful  master  to 
the  dead  ass.  *'  Alas  !"  the  latter  says,  "  I  thought  so  when 
he  was  alive,  but  now  that  he  is  dead  I  think  otherwise. 
I  fear  the  weight  of  myself  and  my  afflictions  have  been 


x]  HUMOUR  J^B  SEXTIMEXT. 


159 


too  much  for  him."  xVnd  tlic  scene  ends  flatly  enough 
with  the  scrap  of  morahty :  "'Shame  on  the  world!'  said 
I  to  myself.  'Did  we  love  each  other  as  this  poor  soul 
loved  his  ass,  'twould  be  somethinor.'  " 

The  whole  incident,  in  short,  is  one  of  those  examples 
of  the  deliberate-pathetic  with  which  Sterne's  highly  natural 
art  had  least,  and  his  highly  artificial  nature  most,  to  do. 
He  is  never  so  unsuccessful  as  when,  after  formally  announc^ 
ing,  as  it  were,  that  he  means  to  be  touching,  he  proceeds 
to  select  his  subject,  to  marshal  his  characters,  to  group  his 
accessories,  and  with  painful  and  painfully  apparent  elabo- 
ration to  work  up  his  scene  to  the  weeping  point.  There  hj 
no  obviousness  of  suggestion,  no  spontaneity  of  treatment 
about  this  "  Dead  Ass "  episode ;  indeed,  there  is  some 
reason  to  believe  that  it  was  one  of  those  most  hopeless  of 
efforts — the  attempt  at  the  mechanical  repetition  of  a  form- 
er triumph.  It  is  by  no  means  improbable,  at  any  rate,  that 
the  dead  ass  of  Xampont  owes  its  presence  in  the  Sentl- 
mentalJourney  to  the  reception  met  with  by  the  live  ass  of 
Lyons  in  the  seventh  volume  of  Tristram  Shandy.  And  yet 
what  an  astonishing  difference  between  the  two  sketches ! 

"  'Twas  a  poor  ass,  who  had  just  turned  iu,  with  a  couple  of  large 
panniers  upon  his  back,  to  collect  eleemosynary  turnip-tops  and  cab- 
bage-leaves, and  stood  dubious  with  his  two  fore-feet  on  the  inside  of 
the  threshold,  and  with  his  two  hinder  feet  towards  the  street,  as  not 
knowing  very  well  whether  he  would  go  in  or  no.  Xow,  'tis  an  ani- 
mal (be  in  what  hurry  I  may)  I  cannot  bear  to  strike.  There  is  a 
patient  endurance  of  sufferings  wrote  so  unaffectedly  in  his  looks  and 
carriage,  which  pleads  so  mightily  for  him  that  it  always  disarms  me, 
and  to  that  degree  that  I  do  not  like  to  speak  unkindly  to  him ;  on 
the  contrary,  meet  him  where  I  will,  in  town  or  country,  in  cart  or 
under  panniers,  whether  in  liberty  or  bondage,  I  have  ever  something 
civil  to  say  to  him  on  my  part ;  and,  as  one  word  begets  another  (if 
he  has  as  httle  to  do  as  I),  I  generally  fall  into  conversation  with  him  ; 


160  STERNE.  [chap. 

and  surely  never  is  my  imagination  so  busy  as  in  framing  liis  re- 
sponses from  tlic  etchings  of  his  countenance — and  where  tliose 
carry  me  not  deep  enough,  in  flying  from  my  own  heart  into  his, 
and  feeling  Avhat  is  natural  for  an  ass  to  think,  as  well  as  a  man, 
upon  the  occasion.  .  .  .  Come,  Honesty !  said  I,  seeing  it  was  im- 
practicable to  pass  betwixt  him  and  the  gate,  art  thou  for  coming  in 
or  going  out  ?  The  ass  twisted  his  head  round,  to  look  up  the  street. 
Well,  replied  I,  we'll  wait  a  minute  for  thy  driver.  He  turned  his 
head  thoughtfully  about,  and  looked  wistfully  the  opposite  way.  I 
understand  thee  perfectly,  answered  I :  if  thou  takest  a  wrong  step 
in  this  affair  he  will  cudgel  thee  to  death.  Well,  a  minute  is  but  a 
minute,  and  if  it  saves  a  fellow-creature  a  drubbing,  it  shall  not  be 
set  down  as  ill  spent.  He  was  eating  the  stem  of  an  artichoke  as 
this  discourse  went  on,  and,  in  the  little  peevish  contentions  of  nat- 
ure betwixt  hunger  and  uusavouriness,  had  dropped  it  out  of  his 
mouth  half  a  dozen  times,  and  picked  it  up  again.  God  help  thee, 
Jack !  said  I,  thou  hast  a  bitter  breakfast  on't,  and  many  a  bitter 
blow,  I  fear,  for  its  wages — 'tis  all,  all  bitterness  to  thee,  whatever 
life  is  to  others.  And  now  thy  mouth,  if  one  knew  the  truth  of  it,  is 
as  bitter,  I  dare  say,  as  soot  (for  he  had  cast  aside  the  stem),  and 
thou  hast  not  a  friend,  perhaps,  in  all  this  world  that  will  give  thee  a 
macaroon.  In  saying  this  I  pulled  out  a  paper  of  'em,  which  I  had 
just  purchased,  and  gave  him  one ;  and,  at  this  moment  that  I  am 
telling  it,  my  heart  smites  me  that  there  was  more  of  pleasantry  in 
the  conceit  of  seeing  how  an  ass  would  eat  a  macaroon,  than  of  be- 
nevolence in  giving  him  one,  which  presided  in  the  act.  When  the 
ass  had  eaten  his  macaroon  I  pressed  him  to  come  in.  The  poor 
beast  was  heavy  loaded,  his  legs  seemed  to  tremble  under  him,  he 
hung  rather  backwards,  and  as  I  pulled  at  his  halter  it  broke  short 
in  my  hand.  He  looked  up  pensive  in  my  face.  '  Don't  thrash  me 
with  it ;  but  if  you  will,  you  may.'     *  K I  do,'  said  I, '  I'll  be  d d.' " 

Well  might  Thackeray  say  of  this  passage  that, "  the 
critic  who  refuses  to  see  in  it  wit,  humour,  pathos,  a  kind 
nature  speaking,  and  a  real  sentiment,  must  be  hard  in- 
deed to  move  and  to  please."  It  is,  in  truth,  excellent ; 
and  its  excellence  is  due  to  its  possessing  nearly  every  one 
of  those  qualities,  positive  and  negative,  which  the  two 


X.]  HUMOUR  AXD  SEXTIMEXT.  IGl 

other  scenes  above  quoted  arc  without.  The  author  does 
not  here  obtrude  himself,  does  not  importune  us  to  admire 
his  exquisitely  compassionate  nature ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
at  once  amuses  us  and  enlists  our  sympathies  by  that 
subtly  humorous  piece  of  self-analysis,  in  which  he  shows 
how  large  an  admixture  of  curiosity  was  contained  in  his 
benevolence.  The  incident,  too,  is  well  chosen.  Xo  forced 
concurrence  of  circumstances  brings  it  about :  it  is  such  as 
any  man  might  have  met  with  anywhere  in  his  travels,  and 
it  is  handled  in  a  simple  and  manly  fashion.  The  reader 
is  icith  the  writer  throughout ;  and  their  common  mood  of 
half-humorous  pity  is  sustained,  unforced,  but  unbroken, 
from  first  to  last. 

One  can  hardly  say  as  much  for  another  of  the  much- 
quoted  pieces  from  the  Sentimental  Journey — the  descrip- 
tion of  the  caa'cd  starlino-.  The  passao-e  is  inojeniouslv 
worked  into  its  context ;  and  if  we  were  to  consider  it  as 
only  intended  to  serve  the  purpose  of  a  sudden  and  dra- 
matic discomfiture  of  the  Traveller's  somewhat  inconsider- 
ate moralizings  on  captivity,  it  would  be  well  enough. 
But,  regarded  as  a  substantive  appeal  to  one's  emotions, 
it  is  open  to  the  criticisms  which  apply  to  most  other  of 
Sterne's  too  deliberate  attempts  at  the  pathetic.  The  de- 
tails of  the  picture  are  too  much  insisted  on,  and  there  is 
too  much  of  self-consciousness  in  the  artist.  Even  at  the 
very  close  of  the  story  of  Le  Fcvre's  death — finely  told 
though,  as  a  whole,  it  is — there  is  a  jarring  note.  Even 
while  the  dying  man  is  breathing  his  last  our  sleeve  is 
twitched  as  we  stand  at  his  bedside,  and  our  attention 
forcibly  diverted  from  the  departing  soldier  to  the  literary 
ingenuities  of  the  man  who  is  describing  his  end : 

"  There  was  a  frankness  in  my  Uncle  Toby,  not  the  effect  of  famil- 
iarity, but  the  cause  of  it,  which  let  you  at  once  into  his  soul,  and 


1G2  STERNE.  [chap. 

showed  you  the  goodness  of  his  nature.  To  this  there  was  something 
in  his  looks,  and  voice,  and  manner,  superadded,  which  eternally  beck- 
oned to  the  unfortunate  to  come  and  take  shelter  under  him ;  so  that 
before  my  Uncle  Toby  had  half  finished  the  kind  offers  he  was  mak- 
ing to  the  father  had  the  son  insensibly  pressed  up  close  to  his  knees, 
and  had  taken  hold  of  the  breast  of  his  coat,  and  Avas  pulling  it  to- 
wards him.  The  blood  and  spirits  of  Le  Fevre,  which  were  waxing 
cold  and  slow  within  him,  and  were  retreating  to  their  last  citadel, 
the  heart,  rallied  back  ;  the  film  forsook  his  eyes  for  a  moment ;  he 
looked  up  wishfully  in  my  Uncle  Toby's  face,  then  cast  a  look  upon 
his  boy — and  that  ligament,  fine  as  it  was,  was  never  broken." 

IIow  excellent  all  that  is !  and  how  perfectly  would  the 
scene  have  ended  had  it  closed  with  the  tender  and  poetic 
image  which  thus  describes  the  dying  soldier's  commenda- 
tion of  his  orphan  boy  to  the  care  of  his  brother-in-arms ! 
But  what  of  this,  which  closes  the  scene,  in  fact  ? 

"  Nature  instantly  ebbed  again  ;  the  film  returned  to  its  place  ;  the 
pulse  fluttered  —  stopped  —  went  on  —  throbbed  —  stopped  again  — 
moved,  stopped.     Shall  I  go  on  ?     No." 

Let  those  admire  this  who  can.  To  me  I  confess  it 
seems  to  spoil  a  touching  and  simple  death-bed  scene  by  a 
piece  of  theatrical  trickery. 
I  The  sum,  in  fact,  of  the  whole  matter  appears  to  be, 
that  the  sentiment  on  which  Sterne  so  prided  himself — the 
acute  sensibilities  which  he  regarded  with  such  extraordi- 
nary complacency,  were,  as  has  been  before  observed,  the 
'sveahness,  and  not  the  strength,  of  his  pathetic  style. 
When  Sterne  the  artist  is  uppermost,  when  he  is  survey- 
ing his  characters  "with  that  penetrating  eye  of  his,  and 
above  all  when  he  is  allowing  his  subtle  and  tender  hu- 
mour to  play  upon  them  unrestrained,  he  can  touch  the 
springs  of  compassionate  emotion  in  us  with  a  potent  and 
unerring  hand.     But  when  Sterne  the  man  is  uppermost — 


X.]  HUMOUR  AXD  SEXTIMEXT.  103 

when  he  is  looking  inward  and  not  outward,  contemplating 
his  own  feelings  instead  of  those  of  his  personages,  his 
cunning  fails  him  altogether.  He  is  at  his  best  in  pathos 
when  he  is  most  the  humourist ;  or  rather,  we  may  almost 
sa}',  his  pathos  is  never  good  unless  when  it  is  closely  in- 
terwoven with  his  humour.  In  this,  of  course,  there  is 
nothing  at  all  surprising.  The  only  marvel  is,  that  a  man 
who  was  such  a  master  of  the  humorous,  in  its  highest  and 
deepest  sense,  should  seem  to  have  so  little  understood  how 
near  together  lie  the  sources  of  tears  and  laughter  on  the 
very  way-side  of  man's  mysterious  life. 


CHAPTER  XL 

CREATIVE    AND    DRAMATIC    POWER. PLACE    IN    ENGLISH 

LITERATURE. 

Subtle  as  is  Sterne's  humour,  and  true  as,  in  its  proper 
moods,  is  his  pathos,  it  is  not  to  these  but  to  the  parent 
gift  from  ^Yhich  they  sprang,  and  perhaps  to  only  one  spe- 
cial display  of  that  gift,  that  he  owes  his  immortality.  We 
are  accustomed  to  bestow  so  lightly  this  last  hyperbolic 
honour — hyperbolic  always,  even  when  we  are  speaking 
of  a  Homer  or  a  Shakspeare,  if  only  we  project  the  vision 
far  enough  forward  through  time — that  the  comparative 
ease  with  which  it  is  to  be  earned  has  itself  come  to  be 
exaggerated.  There  are  so  many  "  deathless  ones  "  about 
— if  I  may  put  the  matter  familiarly — in  conversation  and 
in  literature,  that  we  get  into  the  way  of  thinking  that 
they  are  really  a  considerable  body  in  actual  fact,  and  that 
the  works  which  have  triumphed  over  death  are  far  moro 
numerous  still.  The  real  truth,  however,  is,  that  not  only 
are  "those  who  reach  posterity  a  very  select  company  in- 
deed," but  most  of  them  have  come  much  nearer  missing 
their  destiny  than  is  popularly  supposed.  Of  the  dozen  or 
score  of  writers  in  one  century  whom  their  own  contem- 
poraries fondly  decree  immortal,  one-half,  perhaps,  may  be 
remembered  in  the  next;  while  of  the  creations  which 
were  honoured  with  the  diploma  of  immortality  a  very 


CHAP.  XL]       CREATIVE  AXD  DRAMATIC  POWER.  165 

mucli  smaller  proportion  as  a  rule  survive.  Only  some 
fifty  per  cent,  of  the  prematurely  laurel-crowned  reach  the 
goal ;  and  often  even  upon  their  brows  there  flutter  but  a 
few  stray  leaves  of  the  bay.  A  single  poem,  a  solitary 
drama — nay,  perhaps  one  isolated  figure,  poetic  or  dra- 
matic—avails, and  but  barely  avails,  to  keep  the  immortal 
from  putting  on  mortality.  Hence  we  need  think  it  no 
disparagement  to  Sterne  to  say  that  he  lives  not  so  much 
in  virtue  of  his  creative  power  as  of  one  great  individual 
creation.  His  imaginative  insight  into  character  in  gen- 
eral was,  no  doubt,  considerable ;  his  draughtsmanship, 
whether  as  exhibited  in  the  rough  sketch  or  in  the  finished 
portrait,  is  unquestionably  most  vigorous;  but  an  artist 
may  put  a  hundred  striking  figures  upon  his  canvas  for 
one  that  will  linger  in  the  memory  of  those  who  have  gazed 
upon  it ;  and  it  is,  after  all,  I  think,  the  one  figure  of  Cap- 
tain Tobias  Shandy  which  has  graven  itself  indelibly  on 
the  memory  of  mankind.  To  have  made  this  single  addi- 
tion to  the  imperishable  types  of  human  character  em- 
bodied in  the  world's  literature  may  seem,  as  has  been  said, 
but  a  light  matter  to  those  who  talk  with  light  exaggera- 
tion of  the  achievements  of  the  literary  artist ;  but  if  we 
exclude  that  one  creative  prodigy  among  men,  who  has 
peopled  a  whole  gallery  with  imaginary  beings  more  real 
than  those  of  flesh  and  blood,  we  shall  find  that  very  few 
archetypal  creations  have  sprung  from  any  single  hand. 
Now,  My  Uncle  Toby  is  as  much  the  archetype  of  guile- 
less good  nature,  of  affectionate  simplicity,  as  Hamlet  is  of 
irresolution,  or  lago  of  cunning,  or  Shylock  of  race-hatred  ; 
and  he  contrives  to  preserve  all  the  characteristics  of  an 
ideal  type  amid  surroundings  of  intensely  prosaic  realism, 
with  which  he  himself,  moreover,  considered  as  an  individ- 
ual character  in  a  specific  story,  is  in  complete  accord.    If 


106  STERNE.  [chap. 

any  one  be  disposed  to  underrate  tlic  creative  and  dramatic 
power  to  which  this  testifies,  let  him  consider  hov/  it  has 
commonly  fared  with  those  writers  of  prose  fiction  ayIio 
have  attempted  to  personify  a  virtue  in  a  man.  Take  the 
,!w'ork  of  another  famous  Eno-lish  humourist  and  sentimcn- 
talist,  and  compare  Uncle  Toby's  manly  and  dignified  gen- 
tleness of  heart  with  the  unreal  "  gush  "  of  the  Brothers 
Cheeryble,  or  the  fatuous  benevolence  of  Mr.  Pickwick. 
AYc  do  not  believe  in  the  former,  and  we  cannot  but  de- 
spise the  latter.  But  Captain  Shandy  is  reality  itself, 
within  and  without;  and  though  we  smile  at  his  naivete, 
and  may  even  laugh  outright  at  his  boyish  enthusiasm  for 
his  military  hobby,  "we  never  cease  to  respect  him  for  a 
moment.  There  is  no  shirking  or  softening  of  the  comic 
aspects  of  his  character ;  there  could  not  be,  of  course,  for 
Sterne  needed  him  more,  and  used  him  more,  for  his  pur- 
poses as  a  humourist  than  for  his  purposes  as  a  sentimen- 
talist. Nay,  it  is  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  deliber- 
ately sentimentalizes  with  Captain  Shandy  that  the  Cap- 
tain is  the  least  delightful;  it  is  then  that  the  hand  loses 
its  cunning,  and  the  stroke  strays;  it  is  then,  and  only 
then,  that  the  benevolence  of  the  good  soldier  seems  to 
verge,  though  ever  so  little,  upon  affectation.  It  is  a  pity, 
for  instance,  that  Sterne  should,  in  illustration  of  Captain 
Shandy's  kindness  of  heart,  have  plagiarized  (as  he  is  said 
to  have  done)  the  incident  of  the  tormenting  fly,  caught 
and  put  out  of  the  window  with  the  words  "  Get  thee 
gone,  poor  devil !  Why  should  I  harm  thee  ?  The  world 
is  surely  large  enough  for  thee  and  me."  There  is  some- 
thing too  much  of  self-conscious  virtue  in  the  apostrophe. 
This,  we  feel,  is  not  the  real  Uncle  Toby  of  Sterne's  objec- 
tive mood ;  it  is  the  Uncle  Toby  of  the  subjectifying  sen- 
timentalist, survevino-  his  character  throuo-h  the  false  me- 


XI.]  CEEATIVE  A^'D  DRAMATIC  TOWER.  167 

dium  of  liis  own  hypertropliied  sensibilities.  These  lapses, 
however,  are,  fortunately,  rare.  As  a  rule  we  see  the  wor- 
thy Captain  only  as  he  appeared  to  his  creator's  keen  dra- 
matic eye,  and  as  he  is  set  before  us  in  a  thousand  exqui- 
site touches  of  dialogue — the  man  of  simple  mind  and 
soul,  profoundly  unimaginative  and  unpbilosophical,  but 
lacking  not  in  a  certain  shrewd  common-sense ;  exquisitely 
naif,  and  delightfully  mal-a-in'ojjos  in  his  observations,  but 
always  pardonably,  never  foolishly,  so ;  inexhaustibly  ami- 
able, but  with  no  weak  amiability ;  homely  in  his  ways, 
but  a  perfect  gentleman  withal ;  in  a  word,  the  most  win- 
ning and  lovable  personality  that  is  to  be  met  with,  surely, 
in  the  whole  range  of  fiction. 

It  is,  in  fact,  with  Sterne's  general  delineations  of  char- 
acter as  it  is,  I  have  attempted  to  show,  with  his  particular 
passages  of  sentiment.  He  is  never  at  his  best  and  truest 
— as,  indeed,  no  writer  of  fiction  ever  is  or  can  be — save 
when  he  is  allowing  his  dramatic  imagination  to  play  the 
most  freely  upon  his  characters,  and  thinking  least  about 
himself.  This  is  curiously  illustrated  in  his  handling  of 
what  is,  perhaps,  the  next  most  successful  of  the  uncari- 
catured  portraits  in  the  Shandy  gallery — the  presentment 
of  the  Rev.  Mr.'  Yorick.  Xothing  can  be  more  perfect  in 
its  way  "than  the  picture  of  the  "  lively,  witty,  sensitive,  and 
heedless  parson,"  in  chapter  x.  of  the  first  volume  of  Tris- 
tram Shandy.  We  seem  to  see  the  thin,  melancholy  figure 
on  the  rawboned  horse — the  apparition  which  could  "  nev- 
er present  itself  in  the  village  but  it  caught  the  attention 
of  old  and  young,"  so  that  "  labour  stood  still  as  he  passed, 
the  bucket  hung  suspended  in  the  middle  of  the  well,  the 
spinning-wheel  forgot  its  round  ;  even  chuck-farthing  and 
shuffle-cap  themselves  stood  gaping  till  he  was  out  of 
sight."     Throughout  this  chapter  Sterne,  though  describ- 


1G8  STERNE.  [chap. 

ing  liimself,  is  projecting  Lis  personality  to  a  distance,  as  it 
were,  and  contemplating  it  dramatically ;  and  tlic  result  is 
excellent.  AYlien  in  the  next  chapter  he  becomes  "lyri- 
cal," so  to  speak  ;  when  the  reflection  upon  his  (largely 
imaginary)  wrongs  impels  him  to  look  inward,  the  invari- 
able consequence  follows;  and  though  Yorick's  much  be- 
praised  death-scene,  with  Eugenius  at  his  bed-side,  is  re- 
deemed from  entire  failure  by  an  admixture  of  the  humor- 
ous with  its  attempted  pathos,  we  ask  ourselves  with  some 
wonder  what  the  unhappiness — or  the  death  itself,  for 
that  matter — is  "  all  about."  The  wrongs  which  were 
supposed  to  have  broken  Yorick's  heart  are  most  imper- 
fectly specified  (a  comic  proof,  by  the  way,  of  Sterne's 
entire  absorption  in  himself,  to  the  confusion  of  his  own 
personal  knowledge  with  that  of  the  reader),  and  the  first 
conditions  of  enlisting  the  reader's  sympathies  arc  left  un- 
fulfilled. 

But  it  is  comparatively  seldom  that  this  foible  of  Sterne 
obtrudes  itself  upon  the  strictly  narrative  and  dramatic 
parts  of  his  w^ork  ;  and,  next  to  the  abiding  charm  and 
,/  interest  of  his  principal  figure,  it  is  by  the  admirable  life 
';  and  colour  of  his  scenes  that  he  exercises  his  strongest 
i /powers  of  fascination   over  a  reader.     Perpetual   as   are 
I  Sterne's  affectations,  and  tiresome  as  is  his  eternal  self- 
consciousness  when  he  is  speaking  in  his  own  person,  yet 
when  once  the  dramatic  instinct  fairly  lays  hold  of  him 
there  is  no  writer  who  ever  makes  us  more  completely 
forget  him  in  the  presence  of  his  characters — none  who 
can  bring  them  and  their  surroundings,  their  looks  and 
Vwords,  before   us  with  such   convincing  force  of  reality. 
One  wonders  sometimes  whether  Sterne  himself  was  aware 
of  the  high  dramatic  excellence  of  many  of  what  actors 
would  call  his  "carpenter's  scenes" — the  mere  interludes 


XI.]  CREATIVE  AND  DRAMATIC  POWER.  1G9 

introduced  to  amuse  us  while  the  stage  is  being  prepared 
for  one  of  those  more  elaborate  and  deliberate  displays  of 
pathos  or  humour,  which  do  not  always  turn  out  to  be 
unmixed  successes  when  they  come.  Sterne  prided  him- 
self vastly  upon  the  incident  of  Le  Fevre's  death  ;  but  I 
dare  say  that  there  is  many  a  modern  reader  who  would 
rather  have  lost  this  highly-wrought  piece  of  domestic 
drama,  than  that  other  exquisite  little  scene  in  the  titchen 
of  the  inn,  when  Corporal  Trim  toasts  the  bread  which  the 
sick  lieutenant's  son  is  preparing  for  his  father's  posset,  while 
"  Mr.  Yorick's  curate  was  smoking  a  pipe  by  the  fire,  but 
said  not  a  word,  good  or  bad,  to  comfort  the  youth."  The 
whole  scene  is  absolute  life ;  and  the  dialogue  between  the 
Corporal  and  the  parson,  as  related  by  the  former  to  his 
master,  with  Captain  Shandy's  comments  thereon,  is  almost 
Shakspearian  in  its  excellence.     Says  the  Corporal : 

'•When  the  lieutenant  had  taken  his  glass  of  sack  and  toast  he 
felt  himself  a  Uttle  revived,  and  sent  down  into  the  kitchen  to  let  me 
know  that  in  about  ten  minutes  he  should  be  glad  if  I  would  step 
upstairs.  I  believe,  said  the  landlord,  he  is  going  to  say  his  pray- 
ers, for  there  was  a  book  laid  on  the  chair  by  the  bed-side,  and  as  I 
shut  the  door  I  saw  him  take  up  a  cushion.  I  thought,  said  the  cu- 
rate, that  you  gentlemen  of  the  army,  Mr.  Trim,  never  said  your  pray- 
ers at  all.  I  heard  the  poor  gentleman  say  his  prayers  last  night, 
said  the  landlady,  very  devoutly,  and  with  my  own  ears,  or  I  could 
not  have  believed  it.  Are  you  sure  of  it?  replied  the  curate.  A 
soldier,  an'  please  your  reverence,  said  I,  prays  as  often  (of  his  own 
accord)  as  a  parson ;  and  when  he  is  fighting  for  his  king,  and  for 
his  own  life,  and  for  his  honour  too,  he  has  the  most  reason  to  pray 
to  God  of  any  one  in  the  whole  world.  'Twas  well  said  of  thee,  Trim, 
said  my  Uncle  Toby.  But  when  a  soldier,  said  I,  an'  please  your  rev- 
erence, has  been  standing  for  twelve  hours  together  in  the  trenches, 
up  to  his  knees  in  cold  water — or  engaged,  said  I,  for  months  togeth- 
er in  long  and  dangerous  marches  ;  harassed,  perhaps,  in  his  rear  to- 
day ;  harassing  others  to-morrow;    detached  here;  countermanded 


170  STERNE.  [chap. 

there ;  resting  this  night  out  upon  his  arms ;  beat  up  in  his  shirt  the 
next ;  benumbed  in  his  joints  ;  perhaps  witliout  straw  in  his  tent  to 
kneel  on,  [he]  must  say  his  prayers  how  and  when  he  can.  I  be- 
heve,  said  I — for  I  was  piqued,  quoth  the  Corporal,  for  the  reputation 
of  the  army — I  believe,  an't  please  your  reverence,  said  I,  that  when 
a  soldier  gets  time  to  pray,  he  prays  as  heartily  as  a  parson — though 
not  with  all  his  fuss  and  hypocrisy.  Thou  shouldst  not  have  said 
that,  Trim,  said  my  Uncle  Toby ;  for  God  only  knows  who  is  a  hypo- 
crite and  who  is  not.  At  the  great  and  general  review  of  us  all, 
corporal,  at  the  day  of  judgmont  (and  not  till  then)  it  will  be  seen 
who  have  done  their  duties  in  this  world  and  who  have  not,  and  we 
shall  be  advanced,  Trim,  accordingly.  I  hope  we  shall,  said  Trim, 
It  is  in  the  Scripture,  said  my  Uncle  Toby,  and  I  will  show  it  thee  in 
the  morning.  In  the  meantime,  we  may  depend  upon  it.  Trim,  for  our 
comfort,  said  my  Uncle  Toby,  that  God  Almighty  is  so  good  and  just 
a  governor  of  the  world,  that  if  we  have  but  done  our  duties  in  it,  it 
will  never  be  inquired  into  whether  we  have  done  them  in  a  red  coat 
or  a  black  one.  I  hope  not,  said  the  Corporal.  But  go  on,  said  my 
Uncle  Toby,  with  thy  story." 

We  might  almost  fancy  ourselves  listening  to  that  no- 
ble prose  colloquy  between  tlie  disguised  king  and  liis 
soldiers  on  the  night  before  Agincourt,  in  Henry  V.  And 
though  Sterne  does  not,  of  course,  often  reach  this  level 
of  dramatic  dignity,  there  are  passages  in  abundance  in 
which  his  dialogue  assumes,  through  sheer  force  of  indi- 
vidualized character,  if  not  all  the  dignity,  at  any  rate  all 
the  impressive  force  and  simplicity,  of  the  "grand  style." 

Taken  altogether,  however,  his  place  in  English  letters 
is  hard  to  fix,  and  his  tenure  in  human  memory  hard  to 
determine.  Hitherto  he  has  held  his  own,  with  the  great 
■writers  of  his  era,  but  it  has  been  in  virtue,  as  I  have  at- 
tempted to  show,  of  a  contribution  to  the  literary  posses- 
sions of  mankind  which  is  as  uniquely  limited  in  amount  as 
it  is  exceptionally  perfect  in  quality.  One  cannot  but  feel 
that,  as  regards  the  sum  of  his  titles  to  recollection,  his 


XI.]  PLACE  IX  EXGLISn  LITERATURE.  171 

name  stands  far  below  eitber  of  tbose  otber  two  wbicb 
in  tbe  course  of  tbe  Last  century  added  tbenisclves  to 
tbe  bigbest  rank  among  tbe  classics  of  Englisb  buraour. 
Sterne  bas  not  tbe  abounding  life  and  tbe  varied  buman 
interest  of  Fielding;  and,  to  say  notbing  of  bis  vast  intel- 
lectual inferiority  to  Swift,  be  never  so  much  as  approach- 
es tbose  problems  of  everlasting  concernment  to  man  wbicb 
Swift  bandies  witb  so  terrible  a  fascination.  Certainly  no 
enthusiastic  Gibbon  of  tbe  future  is  ever  likely  to  say  of 
Sterne''s  "pictures  of  buman  manners"  that  they  will  out- 
live tbe  palace  of  tbe  Escurial  and  tbe  Imperial  Eagle  of 
tbe  House  of  Austria.  Assuredly  no  one  will  ever  find  in 
this  so-called^^^|hantitype  of  tbe  Cure  of  Meudon 
any  of  tb^|^P^^PaTitiC3  of  that  gloomy  and  command- 
ing spirit  which  bas  been  finely  compared  to  tbe  "  soul  of 
Rabelais  hahitans  in  siccoy  Xav,  to  descend  even  to  mi- 
nor  aptitudes,  Sterne  cannot  tell  a  story  as  Swift  and  Field- 
ing can  tell  one ;  and  bis  work  is  not  assured  of  life  as 
Tom  Jones  and  Gulliver's  Travels,  considered  as  stories 
alone,  would  be  assm*ed  of  it,  even  if  tbe  one  were  strip- 
ped of  its  cheerful  humour,  and  the  otber  disarmed  of  its 
savao-e  alle^-orv.  And  bence  it  mio'bt  be  rash  to  predict 
that  Sterne's  days  will  be  as  long  in  tbe  land  of  literary 
memory  as  the  two  great  writers  aforesaid.  Ranked,  as 
he  still  is,  among  "English  classics,"  be  undergoes,  I  sus- 
pect, even  more  tban  an  English  classic's  ordinary  share 
of  reverential  nco'lect.  Amono-  those  who  talk  about  bim 
he  bas,  I  should  imagine,  fewer  readers  tban  Fielding,  and 
very  much  fewer  tban  Swift.  Xor  is  he  likely  to  increase 
their  number  as  time  goes  on,  but  rather,  perhaps,  tbe  con- 
trary. Indeed,  tbe  only  question  is  whetber  with  tbe  lapse 
of  years  he  will  not,  like  other  writers  as  famous  in  tbeir 
day,  become  yet  more  of  a  mere  name.     For  tbere  is  still, 


172  STERNE.  [chap. 

of  course,  a  furtlicr  stage  to  ^vllicll  lie  may  decline.  That 
object  of  so  miicli  empty  month-Lononr,  tlie  English  clas- 
sic of  the  last  and  earlier  centuries,  presents  himself  for 
classification  under  three  distinct  categories.  There  is  the 
class  who  are  still  read  in  a  certain  measure,  though  in  a 
much  smaller  measure  than  is  pretended,  by  the  great  body 
of  ordinarily  ^veil-educated  men.  Of  this  class,  the  two 
authors  whose  names  I  have  already  cited.  Swift  and  Field- 
ing, arc  typical  examples;  and  it  may  be  taken  to  include 
Goldsmith  also.  Then  comes  the  class  of  those  whom  the 
ordinarily  well-educated  public,  whatever  they  may  pretend, 
read  really  very  little  or  not  at  all ;  and  in  this  class  we 
may  couple  Sterne  with  Addison,  with  Smollett,  and,  ex- 
cept, of  course,  as  to  Robinson  Crusoe — unless,  indeed,  our 
blase  boys  have  outgrown  him  among  other  pleasures  of 
boyhood — with  Defoe.  But  below  this  there  is  yet  a  third 
class  of  writers,  who  are  not  only  read  by  none  but  the 
critic,  the  connoisseur,  or  the  historian  of  literature,  but 
arc  scarcely  read  even  by  them,  except  from  curiosity,  or 
"  in  the  way  of  business."  The  type  of  this  class  is  Rich- 
ardson ;  and  one  cannot,  I  say,  help  asking  whether  he  will 
hereafter  have  Sterne  as  a  companion  of  his  dusty  solitude. 
Are  Tristram  Shandy  and  the  Sentimental  Journey  des- 
tined to  descend  from  the  second  class  into  the  third — 
from  the  region  of  partial  into  that  of  total  neglect,  and  to 
have  their  portion  with  Clarissa  Harlowe  and  Sir  Charles 
Grandison  ?  The  unbounded  vogue  which  they  enjoyed 
in  their  time  will  not  save  them ;  for  sane  and  sober  critics 
compared  Richardson  in  his  day  to  Shakspeare,  and  Dide- 
rot broke  forth  into  prophetic  rhapsodies  upon  the  immor- 
tality of  his  works  which  to  us  in  these  days  have  become 
absolutely  pathetic  in  their  felicity  of  falsified  prediction. 
Seeing,  too,  that  a  good  three -fourths  of  the  attractions 


XI.]  PLACE  IX  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  1Y3 

■\vLicli  won  Sterne  liis  contemporary  popularity  are  now  so 
raucli  dead  weiglit  of  dead  matter,  and  tbat  tbe  vital  re- 
siduum is  in  amount  so  small,  the  fate  of  Richardson  might 
seem  to  be  but  too  close  behind  him.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  this  fate  will  ever  quite  overtake  him.  Ilis 
sentiment  may  have  mostly  ceased — it  probably  has  ceased 
— to  stir  any  emotion  at  all  in  these  days ;  but  there  is  an 
imperishable  element  in  his  humour.  And  though  tho 
circle  of  his  readers  may  have  no  tendency  to  increase,  one 
can  hardly  suppose  that  a  charm,  which  those  who  still 
feel  it  feel  so  keenly,  will  ever  entirely  cease  to  captivate ; 
or  that  time  can  have  any  power  over  a  perfume  which  so 
wonderfullv  retains  the  puno-ent  freshness  of  its  fra'^'rance 
after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years. 


THE  EXD. 


i) 


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